We recently threw a party and someone decided to steal my candle from my bathroom.
I gave it three full days to get over it but somehow, I’m still not. First World problems amirite? Blah blah. Fuck the hand-crafted artisanal candle at this point. It’s the principle. Did I enjoy it while it lived in my bathroom? Yes. I enjoyed it so much I never lit it. It was an art piece. Every time I stood infront of it to pee, I would stare at this mini candle sculpted as a perfect muscular male physique. Next to it was a slightly smaller candle of another male physique, like a Robin next to Batman. Robin was spared, he wasn’t as impressive and I can understand why the scum pocketed the better one.
Three full days and I can’t help but feel violated. I thought I was doing something nice; throwing a joint birthday party to two of my good pals who happen to share a birthday. Another friend joked that it was a charity event, but I’d like to think of it as a sweet gesture to my single friends. Who else will throw you a party past the age of twelve? If not your mum, your other half, who else other than yourself? My life-partner/soon-to-be-official husband and I have thrown a lot of events over the years and we aren’t strangers to mishaps and fuckery; a drunk person opening a Veuve Clicquot which was clearly a gift for the hosts, labeled with our names and not even have half the decency to drink it into oblivion, otherwise I wouldn’t’ve known altogether. To top it off, he puked it all in the bathroom and missing the toilet entirely. A nice desecrated oatmeal splatter left for us to clean into the wee-hours of the morning. Or another drunk person blacking out into our chaise lounge with pee dripping down creating a puddle underneath the fancy chair. I did have a person steal from me before. In one of our parties who had to have been someone’s plus-one, someone also not personally invited by me. They stole my hunting club ring straight out of my bathroom drawer. That one hurt since it was a prized possession and I always left it in the same place. Who could it be? I have no idea. And now, three days ago, someone decided to steal my tiny muscle candle. It was a gift from a friend last Christmas and I never dared to use it. It’s too pretty to melt away. It remained untouched on the bathroom’s feature ledge in full view above the toilet. I felt guilty telling one of the birthday boys about it, since he could always turn around and say ‘How do you know it’s one of my friends who stole it?’ but surprisingly he offered to pay for it which was a sweet gesture, then laughed it off admitting that Yes their friends are indeed thieves. That one still haunts me.
To the klepto who stole my candle, I leave you with this: Every time you look at that candle, pat yourself on the back for getting away with it. For having a brave enough face to do it and still enjoy the party. You didn’t have to pay for it. For anything for that matter. You didn’t make the run to Costco and carry boxes up the stairs to make sure your party guests have food to eat. You didn’t make the LCBO trip to buy the booze, the Beer store trip to get bags of ice, you certainly didn’t have to clean the house and wipe every dust off of every high-traffic corner where people can mingle comfortably. And no you didn’t pump every single balloon and tied them off chafing your fingertips red. You most certainly didn’t buy the cake and write Happy Birthday with icing. Lastly you didn’t stay up until 4am cleaning up the piss, the mud and spills, just so you can sleep at ease and not wake up in disaster. All YOU had to do was show up, in all of your Plus-One glory and decide Today I’m going to steal a candle from your house. I showed up for my friends who needed levity in their lives, it’s a shame basic DECENCY fails to show up for you. And you have to live with that.
