The napkin ring chronicles

It all started with a box of translucent napkin rings.


Not terribly all that menacing at first glance, really. But they stare into my soul, taunting me with images of a 30-ish me in a gingham apron, my strawberry blonde locks chopped into a crop cut and in -- wince -- printed capris, packing peanut butter and jelly lunches, with crusts cut neatly off, for a girl and a boy, maybe twins if the stars align correctly.


And then invade thoughts of color palettes -- blue and yellow as bright and summery, olive and violet as mature and Italian, perhaps?


Well, No, I say. I want to breed a football team of grody little boys that will grow up to become grill masters, not state senators or successful insurance salesmen. And I want to be chaotically disorganized, but put-together enough to hold grace and schedule elaborate summer vacations. I want to be a successful journalist, who can get out early enough to pick up the kids from school and prepare rosemary and herb chicken whose loitering scent escapes and draws my husband home from work on my own time. I want so much love between the four walls that hold my family that they're bursting at their stucco'd seams at all times.


I'm 19 years old and I'm thinking about my career, my family, my life as it will be cut and glued into the pages of scrapbooks. But I get the impression my dreams are too distant, and mediocrity too contagious.


All because of these damn plastic napkin rings, on sale for the price of abstract fear, $9.95 plus tax.


So I place them neatly back on the shelf -- perhaps for another day, when there are different colors in stock.