mountains? molehills? what's the difference?

i remember, quite distinctly, the day MomCat and SisterCat told me that i was high maintenance.

i remember thinking, that's insane! i'm the most low maintenance person i know. that's probably because i'm the only person that i know from the subconscious level on up, but that's neither here nor there. i took definitive umbrage at the accusation of high maintenance-ness at the time.

upon further reflection, however, i could see what they were getting at. i think sometimes it's not so much that i'm high maintenance as that i'm high strung. it's when i get really high strung that i can, at times, become high maintenance. get it? good.

a perfect example of this is my recent car-related debacle. and by debacle, i mean not a problem at all. turns out, my parking space neighbor is exceedingly gracious, and returned my note with a message saying "don't worry about it - these spots are way too tight! thanks for letting me know!" and then there was a smiley face.

a smiley face.

i spent the last two days agonizing over this, beating myself up and whining incessantly about every little aspect of the situation. what if the person was a big jerk and yelled at me? why did i have to be so stupid and scrape their car?* how am i going to pay for it? what is the insurance going to do, how does it work, oh my god i don't know what i'm doing and i'm such a big dumb idiot. (BoyCat, my parents, and various unfortunate co-workers had to listen to this for 48 hours, mind you.)

and the other person involved? smiley faces.

to that person i say congratulations and goodwill to you, for you are, in fact, a low maintenance person.



*i'm sure you can deduce from the victim's proportional response that it was literally "merely a scratch." i mean, it's an evident scratch, but just a scratch nonetheless. luckily, one of us had the lucidity to see it that way.