COLUMN: I think I've flipped my lid

I don’t know the exact day it happened, but sometime over the past month I became obsessed by a force I’ll call BAC.

Because of BAC I’ve stuffed things into other people’s purses, I’ve contemplated jumping out of my van in the middle of traffic, I’ve lined my jacket pockets with plastic bags and I’ve gone head first into a garbage can.

BAC, for those of you who haven’t figured it out, stands for ‘bottles and cans.’ As in the bottles and cans I’ve been collecting for the past few weeks as part of a bottle drive for my son’s Atom A hockey team.

Rep hockey – like many things in life – involves a lot of fundraising. Our team is selling 50/50 tickets, we’ve sold advertising on a banner, we’ve sold pizzas, (I’ve bought pizzas) and we’ll be selling tickets on something else before Christmas rolls again.

One night my friend Brenda and I – a fellow hockey mom, and the woman whose purse I’ve stuffed empty bottles into – came up with the idea for a bottle drive. Not the most creative idea, since nearly every other team in every other sport in Yarmouth is doing one. But it didn’t involve me selling tickets, and then having to buy the tickets I was selling, so I was in.

But because of BAC I’m a changed woman. It’s not that I don’t pay attention when people are speaking to me, but if there happens to be an aluminum can on the shelf behind them…well, it’s all I can concentrate on. It’s like I’m trying to penetrate it with my x-ray vision to see if it’s empty.

And I’ll resort to garbage picking, proven by the fact that last week I was standing in the back of someone else’s truck in my office clothes and two-inch heels picking up loose bottles and cans – with their blessing.

“Mom, people are looking us,” my son said.

“Swallow your pride,” I told him. “It’s for the team.”

But at five cents a pop, it takes a lot of bottles to make headway. Early in the month I counted up what I considered to be a pretty good stash. For my two weeks of effort my grand total was $13.30.

You’ve got to be kidding. Thirteen dollars and 30 cents? That’s when reality hit me.

(The following sentence should be read in a trance-like-robotic voice. )

“Must get more bottles.”

I didn’t realize how obsessed (possessed) I had become until our doorbell rang the other night. A very polite young lady stood there saying her basketball team was conducting a bottle drive. My first instinct was to jump up and give her a few bottles from the garage, but then I thought about how much work had gone into collecting those bottles.

“Can I give you a cash donation?” I asked.

My husband looked at me dumbfounded with that ‘you-have-bottles-give-her-some’ look.

Yeah, but they’re OUR bottles.

Probably not my best moment.

I gave her $6, which works out to the equivalent of 120 bottles and cans. Not a bad haul for her team, I surmised.

You know, my husband suggested, you could have just given her some bottles and saved the $6 for our own bottle drive.

All I could do was just look at him and think, why are you standing there being logical? Shouldn’t you be off somewhere drinking a bottle of juice or a can of pop?

(THIS COLUMN ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE YARMOUTH VANGUARD IN NOVEMBER 2007.)