A Matter Of Taste

There really is no accounting for taste.  Nor is there any way to get around the fact that we all have our own opinions regarding what "works" and what "so totally doesn't."

I see handknits proudly displayed and worn that don't quite fit my own personal taste.  I often hear people rave over meals that leave me feeling nothing but an overwhelming urge to go get a pizza. I don't love every pair of shoes I see on the feet of my friends and colleagues.  On the flip side, I'm pretty sure that there are people out there who are saying the same thing about my stuff right at this very moment.

Sometimes "taste" can even fool you.  I came into my classroom today only to hear The Boy For Whom All The World's A Stage belting out "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones.  I fairly clapped my hands to my bosom in shocked delight!

"I must be a truly amazing educator to have so influenced this lad's musical ear," I thought to myself.  "Why, he is now crooning one of my absolute favoritest songs ever! And I never even so much as mentioned it, let alone taught a Music Appreciation class!!!"

It turns out that I was less of a fabulous teacher and more of an irresponsible cell phone owner.  While I was downstairs helping to supervise a student in gym class, my phone's distinctive ring tone could be heard emanating from my office.  It was a near thing for TBFWATWAS since the Cheerful Teaching Assistant thought it was his phone and nearly took away this only link to the outside world that he isn't supposed to have in class.  The situation was resolved by everyone standing in my office with their ears cocked towards my purse.  Education as we know it ground to a halt thanks to my inability to remember to hit the "off" button.

By the time I got back, the poor boy was recovered from his near-trauma but now unable to get the song out of his head.  Maybe I influenced his taste after all...

Thankfully, the purse everyone was staring at is a cute one.  I don't much think about style when it comes to other stuff, though.  Interiors, for example, I barely think about at all.  Furniture is for setting things on.  Walls are for keeping out the zombie hordes and propping up the clutter.  I don't agonize over paint chips and I have never once wondered if my space is a "reflection" of anything.  But when you have roommates, you sometimes have to live with a conflict of opinions when it comes to decoration.

The Very Complicated Kitty has taken an active dislike to the wallpaper in the living room.  A very active dislike.  A dislike so intense that it has inspired him to remove it three square inches at a time.  I wake in the middle of the night to subtle tearing sounds.  When I stumble out in the morning, I shuffle through drifts of paper scraps.  Most of his work is near the baseboards, but I am now finding little swipes taken at heights which are well above the reach of the average feline.  Apparently, his hatred of the wallpaper has escalated and we are now in full-on worker mode with or without the usual tools of the trade.

HEY!!!  Teh union rules sez I gets a stepladder and a thirty minute lunch!!!

I suppose this isn't exactly the sort of thing I should be tolerating.  Cats who tear up the wallpaper are generally thought of as "bad cats."  But I've put a great deal of time and energy into reprogramming this train wreck of a beast and I'm really just too tired to care at this point.  Besides, it's not like my attention to decorating detail is so keen that I took care of the places where the paper was coming up in the first place.  He's not really wrong in his decision to deal with the situation.  It is something that needed doing and if the VCK wants to do it, more power to him.  One less thing for me to worry about.

What does concern me is how his Absurdly Gi-normous brother has started picking at the carpets.  I am willing to paint, but I am so totally NOT putting down new carpets.  I don't care what it says about my taste in home furnishings or if the resident felines think we need a new color palette.

I'll just grab my purse and let it play some Ramones.  That'll drown out any further commentary...

SA