Flashback Friday: Digressions in infinite complications

(The following was first published in The News Herald on Sunday, April 29, 2001.)

She needed a spoon for her cereal, but none were clean, so she washed all of the dishes, wiped down the counter tops, swept the floor, mopped, noticed dirt on the baseboards and instead of washing them pulled them off the wall and sanded the paint off of them, refinished them, reattached them to the wall, which she suddenly realized needed a new coat of paint in a different color so she went to Wal-Mart, where she bought paint and brushes, and came back home to paint the dining room (and living room and bathroom) walls — never having paused for breakfast.

Did anybody see where that rabbit ran off to?

She wanted to re-seed bare spots in the lawn, so she bought seed, bags of top soil and cow compost, flowering bedding plants, decorative trimming bricks, and went to find a hoe in the shed, but the shed was in disarray so she pulled everything out of it and stacked boxes and junk for a trip to the dump, and stacked other items for Goodwill, then organized the shed and realized that the hoe was not in the shed at all but rather on the side of the house where our spring garden is usually planted but where pine straw was still heavy on the ground, needing to be raked, so she raked the straw into trashcans that also would be carried to the dump — never having got around to seeding the lawn.

Could someone help us catch these wild geese?

She wanted to relax before bedtime with the latest Left Behind book, but the dog had gotten hair on the bed, so she stripped the comforter and sheets and started a load of wash and folded clothes that were in the drier and went to put them away, but the drawers were full of winter clothes so she sorted the winter clothes — setting many aside for donation — and put the remainder in a tote that wouldn't fit into the closet until the closet was sorted — setting several items aside, again, for donation — and by this time the comforter and sheets had been washed and dried so she made the bed and went to sleep — never having cracked open the book.

But I digress.

Getting to the point (if there is one): The walls would not be repainted now if I had run the dishwasher the night before, as I had promised; the shed would not be cleaned if I had put away the hoe; the winter clothes and closets might not be sorted yet, if I had not played with the dog on the bed.

What would she do without me?