I hate routine but am chained to it. Sometimes my hands are manacled behind my back. Other times they are free while my ankles are chained to the aluminum fence around our back yard. There are days I’d be happy to wear a blindfold, close my eyes and mind simultaneously to avoid the mediocrity of my day.
It starts as I first become aware of how cold the bedroom is. A draft chills my toes that may already be frostbitten. I get up, take a large bath towel from the linen closet, and squeeze it against the window frame and sill. For two winters I’ve nagged Ben to have all the windows weather stripped but he insists he is comfortable, nobody else is complaining and he won’t call a handy man.
My mind ticks like a pendulum set on ‘ high speed. Put the coffee on to perk, shake Ben hard, give Brian his first warning to get ready for school. He’s 11, old enough to get up himself without my prodding, but seems to enjoy annoying me. Get Carroll ready for pre-school pick-up. The bus comes earlier on Fridays. Her clothes for the day are waiting on her rocking chair. ‘Brian, come on, get out of there. Carroll has to go.’
Assembled in the kitchen I wait for trouble. A box of shredded wheat is almost empty and nobody wants what’s left, didn’t want it when I bought it on sale. Two unopened boxes are in the cabinet. Carroll eats whatever I put in front of her. Brian wants to open the Cherrios while Ben wants the Rice Krispies. With a stern scowl on my face I make a statement. ‘Babies, only one box will be opened and I am opening the Rice Krispies. No sense letting one get soft in the cabinet.’
We have a hasty breakfast together and I am left alone, alone in a cage where I endlessly run around, tending to minuscule things that need doing, no break for lunch. Call Mother before I leave the house, take my grocery list with me, don’t forget the sale on ground sirloin. Be at Dr. Gold’s by 1, for that long and expensive root canal job, stop at the cleaner’s for Ben’s slax, polish the dining room table top, call Harriet before she falls asleep on her sofa at 8, cancel our Thursday lunch, get gas.
Opening my bureau drawer, I let out a screech that might be heard around the world. Fortunately, Ben has gone to work or he might have had a heart attack or called 911 before came upstairs to see what I was screaming about. My surprise is so great I darn near scare myself to death. Smack in the middle of my pile of bras, 11, there is now an extra one, THE missing black lacy one that had disappeared weeks ago. It must have gone where socks live, in the Land of No Return. My search had covered every closet, laundry basket, dryer, Ben’s and Brian’s drawers and mine many times. With no need of the black one, no affair to attend for some time, I hadn’t bothered to replace it. Now I don’t have to and saved $30.
With little or no embarrassment, I bring it to the dining table, hold it up as if were a treasure chest of gold. My husband and son are shocked, didn’t know it had been missing. Carroll, only five, says, ‘Mommie, I put that thing in your drawer. Martha and I were playing dress up and Martha forgot to put it back where we took it from.’ We all laughed. ‘Did it fit, Honey?’ ‘We didn’t know where it goes so we made out it was earmuffs and it was snowing outside.’ Laughter is contagious and Carroll laughs with us without knowing what is so funny.
I fill the dishwasher, put left overs in the fridge, get Carroll ready for bed, leave Ben watching a hockey game and look in on Brian to make sure he completes his science project, due in the morning.
All I still have to do is make a new list of what I have to do tomorrow and be sure the heavy towel is blocking the draft from our bedroom window—and maybe–remind Ben to get the window weather stripped before next winter.
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