I Figured It Out...

I have really been procrastinating on putting the Dining Room together and I finally figured out why.  The crystal from the Zoo.

You see way back when I was an intern at the Zoo, I was in charge of cleaning the "Crystal Cabinet" in the Zoo.  It was a curio cabinet that was full of all these Swarovski silver crystal figurine that were donated to the Zoo to be on display and after 10 years, they could be sold off and the money then would be used for conservation efforts.

Once a month, or two if I could put it off, I would head down to the Amphibian and Reptile building and clean out the dead flies and dust off all the crystal.  It was a not so fun job.  Then when I hired on full time, it was also  in my job description (along with everything else in the world). Most of the time, I would have one of the interns come help me because it was better as a team job.  Not so overwhelming.

Then the worst thing happened, someone broke into the cabinet and stole pieces.  In order for us to determine what was taken, we had to take everything out and put it in the containers. It was a two day job even with help from the interns and my friend Melissa.  I was down to the last few pieces and went to take one out that was really stuck down and the glass shelf fell and crystal went flying all over the A&R building.  It was like a bad dream.

I stood there with my hands holding the shelf just staring for a minute.  After I came too, I broke 7 pieces of crystal.  It just so happened that the Zoo's insurance covered it all and I replaced it with the Zoo's money of course.  But I still harbor nightmares of the crystal cabinet.

For Christmas one year, I received a  Swarovski crystal rhino with a broken tail from my boss. What a joker. I can laugh about it now, 8 years later but it still must have caused traumatic damage since I don't want to deal with the china cabinet OR I just might be putting it off so we can watch TV while we eat dinner. You be the judge.

'Til the next adventure...