Silly Bandz

I was one of those kids who had more than anyone else of whatever was popular at the time.

An unreasonable amount of LEGOs

Each color Hamster Eraser

All of the ZuZu pets

A collection of Squingiedinkies

Every scent of those scented colored pencils

How many Silly Bandz do you have?

I’d ask my classmates

They’d respond with numbers I was never fazed by and then throw the question back to me

Seven thousand Eight hundred and Something

I’d always say

Taking pride in my exceptional amount.

I kept them all in one big box

On special occasions, I would dump them out and sort them

Always by color

And then arrange them in rainbow order.

It would take me hours, but I would always finish

If I missed one, I would shift each Silly Band over one by one to make room for the forgotten

And then I would stand there

Overlooking the elegantly woven-together masterpiece of dyed rubber-bands I had created

Sometimes a couple feet away

Sometimes standing directly on top of them

Rubber on my feet

Carefully walking to make sure I did not mess up my work

My accomplishment.

And then I would destroy it

Violently mix it up

Clumps and bunches without any order at all

Until there was only one big pile; the remnants of my work

The enemy of order

A glob of mess.

With mighty armfuls, I’d throw them all back into their box and carry on with my day

An unsorted box awaiting me when I returned the following day

It must have been the disorder that attracted me

The mess in need of rescue

In a rainbow, every color has its place and order

A rainbow goes ROY-G-BIV for a reason

The colors make sense that way

The gradients flowing perfectly; one into the next

Colors without order makes no sense

Chaotic and lacking purpose

But with the assistance of small, eight-year-old fingers,

The order becomes apparent