The Rock Bandit

M has an obsession with rocks. She calls herself a rock collector, but it goes beyond that into something I can't quite make sense of. Since we live in the desert and everybody is constantly preaching to us that we need to conserve water, every single house on our street has nothing but the pea-gravel version of landscaping. You know, those little ugly gray and brown rocks that only serve to remind us that we live in a parched, barren area not really fit for human existence. In fact almost every suburban tract house within a 30 mile radius probably has some of those rocks in the front yard. Absolutely nothing special about them that I can see, but M insists on gathering a few (or more than a few) every time she's out and adding them to her "collection" on the bookshelf. Every once in a while she'll luck out and come home with a big hunk of something that appears to be concrete and her excitement is palpable.

"I'm not sure that's a rock," I say.

"Yes it is! I'm adding it to my collection!" she says, her voice bright. She adds it to the other dusty, ugly shapes on her bookshelf, as if she doesn't have ten or fifteen chunks of concrete sitting there already.

Then, being the sneaky, unsupportive mom that I am, whenever I clean the girls' room, I steal all the rocks from the bookshelves, buckets or bags where she has stashed them and pour them back into the front yard. She does come home and complain, but what can I do? I can't have the front landscaping constantly migrating into the bedroom.

The most irritating part is how we constantly find the rocks all over the place in the house. On the bathroom floor (or in the bathroom sink, like this morning). Tons of little rocky chips in the carpet that only serve to damage my already incompetent vacuum. And best of all, I am forever fishing little pieces of gravel out of K's mouth. He, at least, appreciates M's collection because apparently those rocks taste yummy.

Am I stomping on my child's hopes and dreams by sabotaging her hobby? Possibly, but I don't think I can live with the desert inside my house as well as outside. There are limits to what a woman can stand!