It started with a jelly jar.

Not just any jelly jar, but those cute patterned ones that previously held some delectable concoction from my best friend's kitchen.

I pulled the empty containers out from the fridge and placed them on the counter, asking Lamar to "please don't throw them away."

I said it twice. For emphasis.

Because, he is a male and doesn't always listen.

He heard me because he replied: "Sara said she didn't care if she got them back, she's got plenty of jelly jars."

"I know what she said," I told him. "But, I want to keep these. So please, don't throw them away."

That was the third time I made my request.

Little jelly jars remind me of my childhood when Granny would save and re-use everything she could. And a little jelly jar, particularly one with a quilted pattern on the exterior and with the lid had many purposes. She could store buttons in there, use it as a juice glass, or even re-use it for her own jelly.

I was planning on making candles and gifting one back to Sara Jean, my partner in crime and grand jelly maker.

And, I just like them. I like little glass things and these were cute.

I went to find them one morning, thinking I would put them with my craft supplies for later and could not find them.

I checked the dish racks - no little cute jelly jars.

I did find seven straws, because it makes perfect sense to wash and re-use straws when you can get a pack of 2 million for a buck at the Dollar Tree. I am probably still using the first pack of straws I bought when Cole was 3.

But no cute little jelly jars.

I had asked him three times not to throw them out. Surely if the man will save a dingdang straw, he will save a jelly jar.

"Where are those jelly jars I asked you to save?" I asked him when he got home.

He didn't answer at first, he just got a glass of water and drank it very, very slowly.

When he finished it, he got another.

"Lamar," I began. "Where are those jelly jars?"

"What jelly jars?" he asked. "Did Doodle go out yet? She's got that look like she wants to go. Doodle, do you need me to go out with you?"

He was not going to use her as a pittie-adorable shield.

"Lamar."

"What?"

"My jars."

"Did you want to save those?" he asked.

I swear, he pulled Doodle closer. An adorable chunky pup was not going to save him.

"You save straws and lids to yogurt containers - there's no bottoms to the containers, but by golly, we've got 20 lids. But you threw away those cute jars I asked you to save?"

"I didn't know..."

"You didn't know! I told you - three times!"

The pittie mix sensing my upsetted-ness, sat down on his foot and pawed at me, as if asking me to spare her big human; he didn't know any better.

Realizing it was futile, she went behind the couch to hide.

"I will find them," he said.

But he did not. The jars were not found in the trash can inside and he even checked the garbage outside, not before looking in at me through the window to see if I was watching. I was.

"Are you really going to be mad at me over those jelly jars?" Lamar asked.

I said nothing. Silence speaks volumes.

"I had no idea you would want to keep those. Why did you want to keep them for anyway? Don't you have enough glass jars?"

Still nothing. More volumes. He'd figure it out. Maybe.

"Don't you have some other jelly jars somewhere?" He opened cabinets as if searching, knowing there was no jelly jars. Maybe he was praying the jelly jar fairy had put them there.

"Daddy, you don't get it, do you?" Cole asked, not even looking up from his tablet.

"You gotta listen to your girl - heck, I know that, and I'm only 11. It's not the jelly jars. It's the fact that you didn't listen to her. She asked you not to throw those jars away and you did. You didn't listen. You gotta listen to your girl. I'm not married yet, I haven't even been on a date yet with a girl but one day I will be and I will know, you gotta listen. You don't, and you gonna be in big trouble, Daddy. Big trouble."

Big trouble, the child said. And he was right on all counts.