I Can Find Trouble On My Own!

 I am tired. I finally succumbed to fatigue and took a nap after the trip to Walmart to pick up RX. Of course we picked up other things, needed or not. HeWho hit the cookie aisle .....

We stopped and picked up a pizza for "lunch" on the way home. I am not hungry now that it is time for another meal. I am not preparing anything, having told the only other person here to fend for himself, adding that he should clean up after himself.

He seldom does (clean up any messes he might make). He must think little fairies come in the night and magically take care of everything. While we were out today he was moving in slow mode, while I was all about grabbing what I needed and getting back home. He said, "What else do we have to do?"

He should have kept that thought to himself. I began listing all the things I had to do and then I started listing things for him. You might recall that he built a gate for the back yard fence LAST YEAR. I keep moving it out of my way and sometimes end up dropping it on my feet. No, it is not installed. We needed new ceiling fans for the porch and found a good deal on them Sunday. He opened one box and over the course of two days, he assembled it and got the old one down. The new one is lounging on my table with about a thousand other things. The pizza oven is also on the edge of the table. Well, it was.

I am in the midst of cleaning everything on the porch and moving some things around. A lot of stuff on the table is due to me. I was moving the table by lifting one end over a bit, then the other. Back and forth until I reached the desired destination. I have done this millions of time in my life. I don't ask for help when I can just do it myself.

The pizza oven is very heavy and it fell .... on my foot. the stone that you place the pizza on broke in two pieces, but still fits in the oven. He was upset that I brke the oven, but he could have put it in the shed like I suggested last Fall. He was busy "getting the tax stuff together". He has been doing that for a few weeks now. I suggested that maybe he should devote hours each day, intead of half-hearted minutes. I wish he had a job, he has really embraced retirement.

Back when he worked and I was at home I was able to get so much done in the hours I was alone. When we moved to Minnesota from Tampa, I was on my own unpacking. We had a moving company pack us and unload, but I didn't want anyone to unpack for me. I would have been annoyed with all the questions and prefer to do that myself.

I am organized in a move. We had four children and an exchange student with us. My oldest grandson lived with us and he was not quite 3. We have a big conversion van and three cars, so they put our van in the truck behind our belongings. I packed the van with giant garbage bags, one for each bedroom containing the bedding for each bed and the coffee maker. As the movers brought in the beds and set them up, I mede them up, ready for bedtime.

Our house was a split level with two level on each side. Lots of stairs. The stairs going down to the family room ended at a wall with the door on one side. I wanted to move a rolltop desk to the family room. It was in the dining room and we were buying a new table that weekend. Since we had carpet that was not dirty, what with the house being new, I would simply flip furniture pieces upside down and push them to their new location and flip them again. It worked great.

It worked great until I decided to take the desk down the stairs. Keep in mind that this was in the 90's before we all had cell phones attached to our bodies. The desk was hard to balance on it's top, but I started out fine. I had not put the 3 year old down for a nap yet and he was watching me through the bannister and chattering endlessly. When the top of the desk  farthest away from me hit the carpeted top step, it went flying down those steps like it was a rocket and pushed me back against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. I was trapped with the bottom digging into my sternum.

My three year old charge was not apt to helping others and cooperating. He was howling with laughter at my predicament, so I laughed, too. I instructed him to go get the phone (cordless, thank goodness), so we could call Papa and make him laugh, too. He brought it to me and I called HeWho was at work, thinking he could come home and rescue me. He was in a meeting and wouldn't be out for a couple of hours.

He worked for American Paging (National Sales Manager), so we all had pagers. I ended up paging my son and put 911, so that he would call me right away. We were new to the frozen tundra and the northern state we found ourselves in. It was March, but we had yet to see the yard around our house, as it was still covered in snow. We came from the south where everyone called pagers 'beepers'.

Jeff saw my page and approached the teacher in the class he was in. He told her that his mom had beeped him and put 911 at the end, so he knew I needed him to call right away. 

The teachers interpretation of his request? She thought he was asking her to call 911 because I was beating him! He was horrified at the suggestion that I would beat him and finally made her understand what he needed. Of course they confiscated the pager, but he came and rescued his mom.

All this to say that I sometimes get myself in trouble all on my own.