Bobby Pins

My mom and I do not share our dressers. Actually, I do not have one. Mine is typically a big cupboard where I throw in all my stuff. So each of us has our own set of pins, hair clips and the like that we don’t usually share. During rare times when there is a safety pin crisis, borrowing happens but we don’t care about returning them. So, I found it really funny when my mom asked me to carefully bring back her bobby pins that I was using that night. While dressing me up for a Easter play, she preferred to use her bobby pins as they would better secure my shawl to my hair than the usual pins I use. I’m pretty sure she mentioned at least a fifty times to not lose her bobby pins. I kept saying how senseless her attachment to them was. But she wouldn’t budge. She repeated the chant as I was about to leave. During my ride, I was pondering over why she would be so hysterical about losing her favourite bobby pins. I mean, those are not irreplaceable, though she believes they are! She is very much convinced that no store would have that particular type. Is there more to this obsession, I thought. Why does she hold on to such small things and fear over losing them? She has given me far more valuable things and not care if I spoilt them. She would give up her favourite saree if I wanted to cut it up and stitch a salwar. She would give her rings and earrings up if I happen to like them. She would let me have the only pair of slippers she is comfortable with, if I fancy them. She would give up her portion of the ice cream for brother and me. Why then would she want me to return her bobby pins?! Is it because she has no control over bigger things that she holds on to the tiniest of them? Is it because she has pampered and taken care of others for so long that for once, she wanted to be pampered and treated special, with her definition of special being returning her bobby pins? I don’t know. But all she ever asked me was to be careful with her bobby pins. Just bobby pins. And I failed.