Without consulting my father or I, my mother went and threw out forty years worth of National Geographics that I had organized into boxes last month.
Forty.
Years.
Forty years (and several hundred dollars) worth of history thrown out, just like that.
I had planned on selling them (I was biding my time, looking for the highest offer), but, I wasn't certain; maybe I would have given them to my children, who could have given them to their grandchildren (many of them were my grandfather's, although most of them were from my father's subscription to the magazine which he had since he was twenty or so).
But to just throw them out?
Even if she had donated them to a school or something behind my back, I would have been peeved, but okay.
But to just throw them out?
The National Geographics were my own personal project, and words can't express how deeply enraged I am right now. It's not a I'm-shouting-at-the-top-of-my-lungs enraged, but a my-blood-is-quietly-boiling-and-I'm-just-looking-for-some-blood-to-spill enraged.
My father's even more pissed off, because this is only reminding him of the last time we moved, when my mother threw out all of his records of his family's history, some dating back to the late 1800's.
My father and I both understand that, if she had known what she was doing, she wouldn't have done it.
But that is, perhaps, what fucking pisses us off the most - the fact that she didn't even talk to us about what she had planned on doing before she did it.
It only came up today at the dinner table, when I asked her about them:
Me: "Hey, Mom, I was looking all over for the National Geographics while you were gone, and I was wondering if you could tell me where you put them."
Mother: (in the most casual, relaxed manner possible) "Oh, I threw them out."
cue an awkward silence as my jaw, and my father's, hits the floor
Me: "But mom... there were eight boxes worth of them!"
Mother: (with a chittering laughter, completely oblivious to what she's just done) "Oh, I know, honey. My, it was so difficult to carry them up out of the basement all by myself!"
Harumph.
Typically, I don't like to cry over spilled milk, but...
... nevermind, I won't.
What's the point?