On The Rocks

When my brother and I were kids, we had a rock tumbler. It was a messy, noisy contraption and I don’t remember if we ever got any decent rocks from it—I just remember dirty water spilling everywhere, and then I never saw it again, which was fine by me. When Kate was little, she, like most small children, loved shiny rocks and would pick up ‘special’ ones from beaches, driveways, gravel pathways, literally anywhere rocks could be found (and when I say ‘most children’ I also mean adults because I’ve been known over the course of decades to randomly slip a pretty stone in my pocket). By the time she was in middle school, Kate had amassed quite a collection and we even had a special shelf for her to display her treasures on. So I bought another rock tumbler. It wasn’t a very expensive one and that soon became obvious, as it created a stunning wall of sound that could be heard all over the house. You may or may not know that I suffer from misophonia (another fun offshoot of OCD), and the racket and my anxiety were so bad that at the end of the first cycle, I gave up. “We’ll get a better rock tumbler,” I said, my ears still ringing.

I didn’t bother for a long time, almost as long as it takes a rock tumbler to actually create smooth, shiny gemstones, then a couple of years ago, I saw a very expensive National Geographic model on Facebook Marketplace but the person selling it was asking a very cheap price (I wonder why?) It came with all the rocks, extra grit, and all kind of accessories, and it promised that the rubberized barrel made it “very quiet”. That was a LIE. We set it up in our back family room, and while it wasn’t as loud as the previous model, I could still hear it rumbling and grumbling all day from anywhere on the main floor. I persevered though (mostly because Ken put a sound-dampening cardboard box over it), and eventually got some very nice rocks that I made into necklaces, and I gave them to people while quoting Jean Jaques Rousseau: The sacrifice which costs us nothing is worth nothing. And the people who received the necklaces looked at me the way you can imagine they looked when I said that, but I think they appreciated the gift.

At any rate, I put the rock tumbler away for a bit. Then Ken, who gets that I have a real issue with loud noises, promised that in the spring, we could put it outside in the new workshop he built for me where I wouldn’t have to listen to it, and that was a great plan except because the rock tumbler was in storage in his workshop, I forgot about it. Until 6 weeks ago, when I was going through my stuff outside and I found it in a corner. And I haven’t told you about this for over 6 weeks, because that’s almost the amount of time it takes to polish a bunch of damn rocks in the tumbler, and there’s only one more week left before I have pretty, shiny jewels! I’m on the last grit now, and they keep looking smoother and smoother, and the best part is that because it’s outside, I can only faintly hear the tumbler if I’m in the back yard, and it’s just background noise along with the birds and wind and whatnot. Everything’s going so well that I spent half an hour on Saturday browsing Amazon for more rock kits, and come Christmas time, everyone’s getting a necklace, and this time, all I have to say is, “I made this for you.”

In other news, I still suck at math. Last week at work, I rang through a customer’s purchases, entered the amount of cash he gave me, then proceeded to start gathering up his change:

Customer (holds out more money): Would it help if I gave you $1.10?
Me: (stares blankly, frozen in horror)
Customer: I said, would it help if I gave you $1.10?
Me: It won’t NOW!
My 27-Year-Old Boss: Suzanne, do you need me to do some math for you?
Me (whispers sadly): Yes.

I’m lucky I’m surrounded by people who understand me so well.

And 2 huge thank yous: First to D. Wallace Peach at Myths Of The Mirror for her terrific review of my humour book What Any Normal Person Would Do and second to Paul Brookes at The Wombwell Rainbow for his lovely review of my newest short story collection At The End Of It All!

44 thoughts on “On The Rocks”

  1. I suck at math, too. My wife once laughed at me for using a tip-calculator app to figure out 20% of an exactly $100 tab. I assured her I knew the amount without the help of the app, but that it was just a “gut check” — because I don’t trust my arithmetic and I didn’t want the server to be cheated out of their rightful gratuity owed to my incompetence. Not sure she believed it. Not sure I did, either.

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  3. I’d considered trying a rock tumbler on some of the beach glass I’ve amassed. But I’m not creative, artistic, or tolerant of terribly loud noises, so I guess I can cross that one off my birthday list. How timely, your post! I think your use of your rocks as jewelry gifts is lovely, and worth the sacrifice. ☺️

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  4. I get it about the math thing! I’ve held quite a few cashier jobs that now I can figure things out when that happens. Not quickly, but… (If I could insert a picture of a turtle race here, I would!) It’s stressful, though, for sure! I do have fun teaching little kids all my tricks and workarounds to doing complex calculations. (And, again, by complex, I mean the complexities of early education math. Which, actually, has suddenly gotten pretty complex. I mean, pre- pre-algebra for kinders? I’m so glad I’m not having to go through all the schools in this day and age.) And, wow, that was a much longer comment than I meant to leave. Ha!

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  7. Who does the dusting at your antique & artifact museum—I mean home?
    When our kids were young we dug going out to geological sites to:
    1) dig for trilobites,
    2) dig for geodes,
    3) dig for topaz and other semi-precious stones.
    But frankly, that’s about all we did. The adult, me, was more engaged than they and so the discoveries languished in boxes until ending up being tossed away. Some photos may still survive. Maybe that’s all the elder, me, would need to recall those nostalgic events.
    Are they fond memories?
    Or are they triggers to recollections of times long past? Lamentations of what once was and shall never be again?
    The Stoic in me would point out the inevitable transition from now to then. Be not bitter about the loss of what has gone before. But who can fully cast away that sad and melancholy sentiment?

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  8. I too was baffled by the term “rock tumbler”. Maybe it’s a tall drinking utensil made out of rock? Or a gymnast who’s floor routine exclusively consists of Iron Maiden et al? Apparently not. As I now know, it’s a device to tumble bits of rock. To be honest I think I’m more likely to use the first & watch the second than buy the real thing 😉

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  9. Welcome to the “I HATE MATH CLUB!” Our meetings are held on the second Tuesday of every month, lol. I hate math too, and in an ironic twist I deal with numbers for a living. But what I don is by no means math. Finance and accounting is NOT math. Rock tumbler? Wow, and I though you could no longer surprise me, you have a rock tumbler. All you need now is that forklift suit from Alien. I just ordered your memoir off of Amazon, can’t wait to read it!

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  10. Im’ glad I don’t have a rock tumbler, even though like Kate, I do have a bunch of wonderfully smooth gemstones. Good for you (and Ken) for finding a way to tumble quietly. Show us a necklace when you’re done. And my pleasure to read and review your work. Horror or humor – you excel at both.

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  11. Sadly, I’m very good at math and can do things mentally in a few finger snaps. Then I must sit and wait while others pull out calculators and discuss the math. So exhausting. Poor, poor, pity poor me.

    I also endure misophonia. It grew on me, but mine is more about small cracking noises and yawning. Once I realized I suffered it, I looked back on life and saw how Mom must have had it. She would berate us for clinking the spoon against our teeth while eating cereal, along with the sound of us eating. Doing those things, gum chewing, yawning, and sneezing, all drew sharp-eyed glares and rebukes from her. We got cautious and made jokes. I once told my sister, “Shhh, you’re drinking your milk too loud. Mom will hear.” That caused her to snort milk out of her nose.

    Always fancied shiny rocks. Still do. Never wanted to tumble them. And after reading your account, don’t think I want to. I admire your perpetual industry and sense of purpose. You’re always launching new projects. I, however, can boast about my new high scores on computer games!

    Thanks for a Sunday laugh. Cheers

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  12. Oh, you have to explain this phenomenon to me! I don’t know if you watch Shrinkage (really great show) but there’s a woman on it who gets really into rocks. And. I’m. Stymied. Congrats on your book! Will have to check it out.

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  13. When the kids were young we briefly had a rock tumbler. I think it ran for a day or two before I couldn’t stand the noise anymore. I didn’t have an outdoor space to run it so I gave it away. We still have some unpolished rocks tucked away. I doubt if they will ever get polished – at least in my lifetime.
    I’m one of those people who says to the cashier “if I give you … will it help?’ Maybe I should stop that.

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  14. You are much more patient than I am. I can’t do the rock tumbler thing. I just go to the store and buy shiny ones, already polished. Also, congratulations on your well-deserved excellent reviews 🙂

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  15. I remember when a friend of mine showed me some really cool rocks he’d polished in his rock tumbler, but somehow I never wanted one because I thought a lot of the rocks I found in nature were really nice as they were. I wonder, though, what a large cluster of crystals I found would look like tumbled.
    Also I hate it when someone says something like “Would it help if I gave you $1.10?” I wouldn’t say I suck at math—I can do simple calculations in my head, but I do them slowly. When someone throws more math at me it just makes me start all over again.

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  16. I’m kind of the opposite in that deathly still quiet bothers me, so I might welcome the constant rock grinder noise, though I’m sure Ody would not agree. I like to keep a fan running around the house (especially while sleeping) for the background noise. Probably a byproduct of spending the first thirty years of my life living on the industrial side of town with the constantly humming factories…

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  18. you’re definitely a nicer friend than I am – dunno if I’d ever part with rocks that extracted so much time & energy, even if they turned out ugly. & now you’ve taught me misophonia, a handy word for when I need peace & quiet

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  19. I’m not a friend of math. In high school, I took Algebra. Got an A the first quarter, a B the second quarter, a C the third quarter, and a D the fourth quarter. I was thankful there weren’t five quarters, of course without fully understanding why except that summer blessedly came at that point.
    I find figuring tips to be pretty easy however. I generally round up to the point where the arithmetic becomes easy. Win-win.

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  20. I myself took up the hobby of rock tumbling this year. We were shopping with my nephew and I saw a rock tumbler and said “Oh I always wanted one of those” jokingly though I actually had no clue what it was. So I was given one for Christmas. It’s a Nat Geo but a slightly different model. The first mistake is following the instructions. Step 1 doesn’t take 3 to 5 days–it takes 3 to 5 WEEKS. And to get that wet-look polish you need a real polish like aluminum oxide. You don’t want to do the mineral oil thing. I am addicted to the hobby and bought myself a real tumbler by Thumler brand. You can get additional rocks and grit from places like “The Rock Shed” online. Don’t buy off Amazon because you’ll get crap from someone’s backyard. I think the Nat Geo’s go too fast and beat up the rocks.

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