Wild Thing accidentally dropped a growler of apple cider vinegar

October 17 2019.

I burst into tears and yelled at him to leave the room while I cleaned up the mess. He looked at me wide eyed, and fled from the house. I cleared up the broken shards and washed the floor with the vinegar.

I found him in puttering with his newest chicken tractor. I tried to apologize for my reaction but he beat me to the punch

"I'm sorry mum I didn't mean to waste the vinegar, it was really an accident!"

I apologized and we left it at that. We hunkered together twisting wire into mesh for awhile.

It wasn't even the vinegar. We live in apple country. I can always make vinegar.

A growler costs me 12.00 to buy though. Half a day's pay for a container. I'm afraid to tell Papa Pan about it. It seems like everything is a costly mistake these days. Some days I'm overwelmed with this bitter feeling that life shouldn't be this hard, and then I feel ashamed because it is exactly because of our excesses that things are. How many plastic bottles did I throw away before recycling was made easy with a blue box? How many plastic bottles did I throw into the recycling bin and feel virtuous about? I remember when I bought my first refillable growler and Papa Pan rolled his eyesat the 5.00 price tag. It seemed to be excessive at the time. I was trying to be environmentally friendly and health conscious and we were middle class and could afford to tack 5.00 on to the cost of a bottle of cider. The organic produce was in our reach, the eggs, even the pork as long as we weren't gluttons about it. I didn't think twice about a once a month trip to Costco (remember Costco?). It was all on the backs of others.

Most of the world lives and dies on less than a dollar a day and I'm crying because a bottle was broken. I just haven't had enough time to adjust.

Tomorrow'll be a better day.