"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
Sometime around the end
of May, I won a shirt of many colors on eBay. I like to wear shirts
of as many colors as I can get, and I was delighted with the win —
right up until the seller informed me that there had been a mistake.
The vendor had already sold the blouse in question, and I could
purchase any blouse in their inventory rather than the $9.95 blouse I
had won.
Normally this would
have made me happy, but I had already purchased every blouse I liked
out of this seller’s vast collection. The only blouse left
that was even marginally acceptable was a navy blue blouse with
aspirin-sized white polka dots. Boring! But the seller hadn’t
made the mistake on purpose, and I tried to be gracious about it all.
Everyone makes mistakes — even on Planet Kathy.
Trying to make the best
of things, I decided to look for a red scarf with big red stars on
it. That way, I figured, I could wear the blouse and the scarf
together on the Fourth of July. Then I realized that all my scarf
rings are upstairs. These days, anything that is upstairs might as
well be in Antarctica, so I ordered a whole collection of scarf rings
so I would have one downstairs when the Fourth of July arrived.
But I didn’t have
the appropriate nail polish. Never mind that after 37 years of
marriage, Fluffy had never seen me in nail polish until our friend
Rosie surprised me with a manicure when I was in the hospital in
January. But when he saw me in nail polish, he decided he liked
me in nail polish, and a new Kidd family tradition was born.
Suddenly I had to have a nail polish that would look good with the
new scarf I had ordered for the Fourth of July.
Crisis averted! I
found one — also on eBay. It was called “Keeping Up with
Santa,” a color that would also serve to double for a Fourth of
July motif.
The scarf arrived. The
scarf rings arrived. The nail polish arrived. All was well. At
least, all was well until the scarf disappeared from the pile of
belongings next to my computer.
“Where is my new
red scarf with the white stars on it?” I asked Fluffy.
“No problem,”
he said. “I took it upstairs.”
He took it to
Antarctica, but it was “no problem.” Suddenly, it was
apparent that Fluffy and I might have differing definitions of “no
problem.” This sounded like a pretty big problem to me. But in
the past few months, I have learned when to let things slide, and
when to make an issue out of them. My wardrobe ensemble for the
Fourth of July was definitely a sliding issue.
When I went to bed on
the night of July 3, the last thing Fluffy said was that when he went
upstairs to brush his teeth, he’d bring down my new red scarf
with him. I went to sleep at peace. Then I awoke on the morning of
the fourth, and he held my “red” scarf aloft. It was a
terminally wrinkled, color-block red, white and blue scarf with a
single white star on each blue block, just like — well,
just like the Texas state flag.
I got four compliments on this wrinkled work of art. The men who complimented me probably would have given me the same compliments if I had been wearing a trout.
I hadn’t seen
this particular scarf in years, probably because I didn’t like
it and had thrown it in a bin in my closet. Being in a bin in my
closet for many years no doubt explained many of the wrinkles. The
remaining wrinkles were explained by the fact that the last time I
had taken off the scarf, I had taken it off with an equally ugly
scarf ring, and the scarf ring had squashed the fabric into an
unforgiving knot.
But this was still an
issue that needed to be let slide, because the high priests group in
our ward was in charge of this year’s pancake breakfast, and
Fluffy had to get there pronto. I put on the navy blue blouse. I
put on the odious wrinkled scarf and the new scarf ring. My “Keeping
Up with Santa” nail polish was on my fingernails and ready to
go, and off I went.
As it turned out, I
spent the next several hours inside the meetinghouse, breaking eggs
for scrambled eggs for two wards. Most of the people I saw were men,
none of whom even noticed that the scarf I was wearing was terminally
wrinkled. In fact, I got four (count ‘em!) compliments on my
outfit. I probably would have gotten the same number of compliments
if there had been a dead trout tied around my neck.
The moral of the story
is this: Don’t make a big deal out of small issues. Small
issues are — well, little. The bigger a stink you make out of
them, the more the stink is going to stick to you. The more you
laugh at them, the better you’re going to look. Even if you’re
wearing a dead trout.
Kathryn H. Kidd has been writing fiction, nonfiction, and "anything for money" longer than
most of her readers have even been alive. She has something to say on every topic, and the
possibility that her opinions may be dead wrong has never stopped her from expressing them at
every opportunity.
A native of New Orleans, Kathy grew up in Mandeville, Louisiana. She attended Brigham
Young University as a generic Protestant, having left the Episcopal Church when she was eight
because that church didn't believe what she did. She joined The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints as a BYU junior, finally overcoming her natural stubbornness because she
wanted a patriarchal blessing and couldn't get one unless she was a member of the Church. She
was baptized on a Saturday and received her patriarchal blessing two days later.
She married Clark L. Kidd, who appears in her columns as "Fluffy," more than thirty-five
years ago. They are the authors of numerous LDS-related books, the most popular of which is A
Convert's Guide to Mormon Life.
A former managing editor for Meridian Magazine, Kathy moderated a weekly column ("Circle of Sisters") for Meridian until she was derailed by illness in December of 2012. However, her biggest claim to fame is that she co-authored
Lovelock with Orson Scott Card. Lovelock has been translated into Spanish and Polish, which
would be a little more gratifying than it actually is if Kathy had been referred to by her real name
and not "Kathryn Kerr" on the cover of the Polish version.
Kathy has her own website, www.planetkathy.com, where she hopes to get back to writing a weekday blog once she recovers from being dysfunctional. Her entries recount her adventures and misadventures with Fluffy, who heroically
allows himself to be used as fodder for her columns at every possible opportunity.
Kathy spent seven years as a teacher of the Young Women in her ward, until she was recently released. She has not yet gotten used to interacting with the adults, and suspects it may take another seven years. A long-time home teacher with her husband, Clark, they have home taught the same family since 1988. The two of them have been temple workers since 1995, serving in the Washington D.C. Temple.
