Last night Flipper and I came home from the pool and my attention was immediately caught by a round, tan, shiny glob of poo on my carpet, doubtless from one of the dogs. I gathered paper towels, prepared to pick it up ... when I discovered that in fact is was a rock covered with
Scotch tape.

WHAT???

Why is my house covered with rocks both large and small? They are wrecking my dryer, my vacuum cleaner, and now my sanity. And the poor dogs almost took the fall! I cannot understand her obsession with rocks, both large and small, but usually small. All of them are pretty, even the blue-gray driveway rocks, all have some sort of potential (in her eyes) to be valuable geodes or diamonds in the rough. The VERY rough, might I add.

While I typically love and embrace any signs of a budding "collection" because I know that her passion will be fleeting, the rocks-love has been going on for months and months. Please make it stop.

I can't tell you how many rocks I have gotten out of the washing machine, which has become some sort of de facto tumbler that an elderly rock hound might use, how many stones I have chucked off the deck after finding them in the most bizarre places; the bathroom, the crayon box, the dog beds. It never stops.

When I ask Flipper about them, she looks at me as though I am the crazy one. Anyone normal and rational would spend many minutes every day picking up rocks and stashing them in pockets to be admired later. BUT...in a few weeks' time we will be heading to the Linville area for some camping and exploration of nearby attractions, one of which is Gem Mountain, a "find-it-yourself" gem mining attraction where I can plunk down money for a bucket of gravel and let her search to her little heart's content.

I am hoping this experience can actually show her the difference between a driveway rock and something a little more special. Train her eye to look for the very best, as it were, although I don't have high hopes for garnets and emeralds in Bolin Creek. But you never know.

Perhaps her love of rocks will lead to a career in geology, or something like that. Or perhaps she will be as lucky as the woman that found a 1000 karat ruby last summer at Gem Mountain, and I will embrace the rocks on every windowsill.

Until then, we'll just keep checking pockets and saving for a new vacuum cleaner. And dreaming of big, big rubies.

Leigh appears Fridays at TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Leigh on her blog Flipper and Me.