A special kind of guilt.

This morning while Opal was in preschool Ezra and I went to peruse our local Goodwill(one of my favorite pastimes). Because Halloween has been over for a whole 3 days, the store is packed out with Christmas stuff. I think it is RIDICULOUS that the Christmas stuff is out already.... but it was there so I had to look at it.  I eventually found my way to the section where they had all the nativity sets. Over the last 4 or 5 years I have pieced together a lovely little mismatched nativity from various thrift stores and am always keeping my eyes open for new pieces(particularly a baby Jesus who is not blond.... which are kinda hard to come by). I found a box that appeared to have a mostly complete set including a stable(an element that I do not have yet) so I opened the box to see what exactly was in it. I had just managed to get the lid off and peek inside when I lost my grip and dropped to box on the floor. It made a horrible crunching sound as it made contact with the floor and I quickly(and discreetly)  grabbed the box to assess the damage. I opened the top of the box and found that most of the figures had shattered upon impact, the most alarming finding was the baby Jesus who had been cracked in half straight down the middle! 

 Now.... there are many ways I could have handled this unpleasant situation....... and I realize that the way I chose to handle it was quite possibly not the "right" thing to do.... but the idea of finding a Goodwill employee(who were all very busy I am sure) and explaining how I had just murdered the Holy Family(including a sweet little blue eyed Jesus) and a couple of cows was just too much for me too handle so I closed the lid, pushed it to the very back of the shelf I had found it on and made my way OUT of the store.

Seriously.... the guilt of the experience has been punishment enough... I promise.

*On a mostly unrelated note.... before my "incident", I discovered another nativity set that was made of some sort of metal that was having a strange patina type of reaction causing all the figures,including baby Jesus, to turn a bright mossy,almost day-glow green... they all looked like aliens.... it was very unsettling.