Odius Tasks

Originally Posted May 11, 2009

I don't know about you, but there are some parts of being who I am, called to do what I am doing, that are really stinkin' excellent. On the flip side, there are a couple of things that are significantly less excellent. I'd like to mention a few of those things here today. I hope this isn't 'grumbling and complaining'. Perhaps it is just enough 'realness' for you to finish your week knowing that someone else is in the trenches beside ya.

Ready?

Okay, so first, I really hate going to bed knowing my husband isn't coming home. If I know he'll be home at 3am because of work? No problem. I'm in the happy land of Snooze by 9:15pm. But he's not coming home all night? He's travelling? Sorry. I'll be up til the little birdies sing their happy morning song. Do you know why I hate this? Yes, partially because I'm a sappy, hopeless romantic, but really because I think this might just be the night that some ne'er-do-well rapscallion is going to break into my house and steal something. Nothing strikes fear into the heart so much as the phrase "home invasion". This goes beyond the hassle and severe heebie-jeebie-ness of 'break and enter'. No one wants to know that someone has broken in and rummaged through all your unmentionables, but while I'm at home? sleeping? Um. No thanks.

Next on my list, is making the beds. I'm not talking pulling up the sheets in the morning and arranging the pillows ever so jauntily. No, I mean, I just spent all day haulin' 62% of my body weight in sheets and comforters up and down from the laundry room, only to have to now climb all over some rectangular "funhouse" trying to pin down an elastic edged sheet that doesn't feel like co-operating. And you do realize that at present we have one bunk bed set in our house. We have 3 more sets a comin'. Nothing like whacking my head whilst doing the bottom bunk and then suffering from vertigo from the top bunk to make my night. In fact, I have, in moments of weakness, prayed, whilst up on said top bunk, for that ne'er-do-well rapscallion to come at that exact moment. And I would beseech him to have the decency to help make that top bunk before robbing me blind. Pathetic.

This next one might surprise you. At first it doesn't sound so odious, but if you are a homeschooling mom you may just relate. Sharpening pencils. OH! how I hate sharpening pencils. I really do *heart* a nice sharp HB, but when there are 6 children at the table, all wanting a pointing thing with which to colour or print, and you are trying to sharpen as quickly as possible, it becomes an odios task. Especially when just as you are nearing pencil point perfection, the stupid lead breaks off several millimetres below. It is at that point that I wish I was not such a stupid cheapskate, because the leads likely break so easily because I bought a box of 24 pencils for 10 cents at Target. Why do I think they mark them down to 10 cents? Ah yes, the greatness of the 'deal' is losing its lustre right about now.

Toilet training? Anyone? Ya. Thought so. Moving on....

Picking tomatoes. I know, I know, garden fresh and back to nature and all that. Believe me, I love tomatoes right out of the garden. Nothing tastes better. All hot from the sun and juicy and perfect and YUM! I know. And I realize that *someone* needs to be out there picking them. Just please let me pick the basil that will taste like heaven with the tomatoes. Or let me gather some green beans. Picking in and of itself is not the problem. It is tomatoes specifically. The vines are the problem. They have a smell that makes me gag. Even "on the vine tomatoes" at the grocery store creep me out. Yes they taste better, but only if I plug my nose when I pull them off the vine.

Now this one is obscure, but it trumps the rest: Getting jalepeno pepper juice in the eye. I know, how often does this happen? Not often, but only once in a life makes it the most odious of all tasks. Except possibly making the top bunk. But I digress. It is like a little "do it yourself, at home pepper spray" kit. Man alive, you have to really like guacamole to put up with that pain. It happened to me in a really horrific way once and I was so incapacitated with pain that I left my (at the time) 3 youngest children alone in the living room to fend for themselves while I stood in the shower, fully clothed, trying to pry my eyes open and rinse them out with cold water. This after I had tried to pry my eyes open to get my contacts out (which of course were nicely rubbing that capascin juice right back into my cornea). The thing is, with pepper juice, your eyes don't tear. Your nose runs like a faucet, but there ain't a drip of tear to wash this stuff out. My hubby came home an hour after it had happened and thought that I'd been crying my eyes were still so red and swollen. I told him I would rather be in labour than have my eyes pepper sprayed. Seriously.

This is a long post. Are you still here? Maybe I just gave you an odious task of note: Reading Barbara's rambling blog. Painful.

Here's to hoping that none of us have to do any of those things in the next several days. Especially the jalepeno bit. Maybe keep one on hand though in case of home invasion.