“Honey”, I called, “do you remember that time when the city turned off our water because they said we didn’t pay our bill, and I had to call them up and calmly explain that we didn’t pay it because they never sent it?”
“You mean that time when you made that nice lady cry?”
“Yeah.” I winced at the memory. In hindsight, perhaps I could have handled it a little better.
“Well”, I continued, “it turns out that they did send us the bill after all. I just found it.”
“Really?”
“Yup. Looks like you used it to bookmark a recipe. Baked Perch with Marmalade & Crumbled Potato Chip topping.”
“Oh yeah, I was going to make that.”
Right.
I love my wife, and she does a great job of keeping our house under some semblance of control. With four children, that control was always tenuous at best, but somehow she managed to keep things pretty organized despite the best efforts of little hands and curious minds.
Time has tempered the steel of my soul. It doesn’t bother me at all now to find a fossilized apple under a bed. I’m not phased in the least anymore when I open the refrigerator to find a group of stuffed animals neatly lined up on the shelf next to the milk. I’ve long since become immune to the pain of a Lego under my bare foot. A plastic toy clogging the toilet, a collection of rocks & leaves in a dresser drawer, every screw driver I own in the bottom of a toy box, the lifeless bodies of shattered Fruit Loops on the kitchen floor; all of these have become nothing more than signs of normalcy to me.
None of it is really important. You can’t keep track of everything. Life’s messy. Clean it up.
But there are some things that do need a little priority. Things borrowed, things owed, things important, things breakable; these need a little more attention.
Maybe we wouldn’t lose any library books if we didn’t check out 37 at a time. It’s possible that we’d never pay a late fee on a video if we kept them in a neat, separate pile on the counter instead of mixing them in with the ones we own. I’m optimistic that we’d never miss a payment if our monthly bills didn’t wind up socializing with coupons, children’s drawings, movie ticket stubs, and "thank you" cards.
Maybe it’s my time in the Navy where I learned how to put everything I owned into a space the size of a glove compartment – neatly – that makes me cry out more than most for order in my life. A place for everything, and everything in it’s place. I’m not asking for organizational perfection, but couldn’t I just get . . .well . . . perfection? After all, you don’t see me losing track of anything. If only Catherine could get a little better about that . . .
“Honey,” Catherine calls out, “did you remember to renew the registration for your car?”
“It doesn’t expire until my birthday,” I reply.
“Your birthday was last month.”
Oh. So it was.
She Said - by Catherine Staat
I’m thinking that I need to be the one to start these “He Said-She Said” columns! Goodness, what ya’ll must think! Let’s go back to that sentence up there: “With four children, that control was always tenuous at best . . .” What my darling has forgotten to tell you is about that one occasion where I was so sick that he had to take off from work to take care of the children. He got a taste of what life was like for me while he was away at work:
Getting the children up, dressed, fed, and off to school, hopefully on time. The “I can’t find my shoes” search the minute you are supposed to be out the door while juggling two little ones.
Come back home, clean the kitchen (several times a day), change diapers, run a little one to the potty because we’re in the middle of potty training, clean up the little trails of messes only to turn around and find another one that needs picking up.
Throw in the laundry, walk the dogs, clean the house, pick up children from school (with two different schedules), run to the store to get something for a project that is due TOMORROW and then work on homework with children that would much rather be doing anything but that! Take out the trash before someone knocks it over.
Clean up the eggs that were taken out of the fridge by the youngest and dropped on the floor to make room for his toy car. Pick up the mail as you chase a child down the street while the other takes off in the other direction. Quickly go through the mail deciding what is important and what needs to get tossed.
Get dinner ready, change more diapers, and don’t forget about that load of laundry you threw in earlier that needs ironing now because you left it in the dryer too long. Chase down the toddler you are trying to potty train who had an accident not only on her outfit but on the floor as well.
Remind other children about doing their homework for the 500th time since they have been home, figure out why your youngest is crying for no reason at all (this being the time that you need to make dinner and they have decided to have their “fussy” time). With dinner over, there is clean up and dishes and making sure that homework actually did get finished.
Lunches for the next day and clothes laid out and checking to make sure we know exactly where our shoes are. Bath time for everyone and did you get that laundry out from earlier? That’s okay because one of your little darlings left a crayon in their pocket and now every piece of white clothing we have is branded with red…and all of this is on a good day!
Yep…by the end of the day Blaine was ready for Blaine to get home from work and walk through the door so that he could get a break! Tenuous? No, just a typical day. I do have to ask though, honey…did you ever make it to the shower? I didn’t think so!
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