The Christmas Rocking Horse

This year I put a stocking on my storage door, which is adjacent to my main door. I live in a place built in the 1950's, a typical Hollywood building with all the apartment doors emptying out onto a common walkway that wraps around the building. These are the gifts that I got. -A little roll of Fruit Tingles. Not the BIG roll, but the little roll because someone didn't want to spring for the extra 17 cents the big one costs.

-Some Mango Glycerin soap whose wrapper has warped and might have to be removed with a sledgehammer.

-A small bottle of hand lotion from a bathroom at the Bellagio Hotel so we all know how much that costs.

-And judging by the color design, a turtle candle that someone bought while they were tripping on blotter acid.

Because in my building, I am BELOVED.

This is my Christmas Rocking Horse where I store all the holiday cards I receive. And yes, it rocks back and forth. One year I had it out and I kept looking at it and thinking that it might be time to put it out to pasture at the Salvation Army, time to buy something newer and more modern. That same Christmas, the manager of our building, a psycho named Rhonda, was in my apartment visiting. She commented on how much she loved the horse so I asked her if she wanted it. "REALLY? I've loved that horse for years!"

So I gave it to her. Fast forward a few months and she and I were talking down by the pool and she mentioned that she had cleaned out her apartment and was cutting down on clutter. I thought nothing of it until two days later when I emptied my garbage into the big bins on the side of our building. There, sitting on top of a mound of garbage, was the Christmas Rocking Horse, lying on its side. Crying.

We have a lot of homeless that root through our garbage and I wondered if one of them had seen the horse buried and hidden and had placed it on top, hoping that someone would find it and give it a new home. After all, wouldn't finding a home be something of a priority for them?

I brought it upstairs and cleaned it. Rhonda was so psycho that I never mentioned it to her. She once chased a homeless woman away from our building and down the street. She would duck down in her apartment so the UPS and FedEx guys couldn't see her through her kitchen window and deliver the packages to her in case we weren't home. She lied if she did have a package for us because she might have wanted to watch TV instead of, you know, doing her JOB. Rhonda used to rag on all the tenants and then tell me I was her favorite because I never complained about anything. That was because I was afraid of her rage-filled outbursts. I'm embarrassed that I never did, especially since there were things to complain about. Hard to believe with all the complaining I do here, huh? Two years later she was fired.

I've never thought about giving away the Christmas Rocking Horse again. Mainly because what are the odds that I would have found it in the garbage, on that day, at that hour, in that manner? Every time I look at it, I think of that expression, "If you love something, let it go. If it's supposed to come back to you, it will." If only that worked with cash.

Merry Christmas.