Technology inventor protecting creator's copyrights. Business writer, novelist, songwriter, and Citizen Journalist.
When it comes to getting a project done, I have this habit of putting my head down, pumping elbows, and watching my feet (from here on out acronymed to HDPEWF). Nothing will distract me once I determine what needs to be done. I am the queen of concentration. Normally, such a skill set is a good thing; say, if you're starting a business or responding to an emergency.
Gitterdun. That's me.
But such a mindset is not a good thing when you have children as children are the worst when it comes to exploiting a weakness. Water will find the path of least resistance and wear a canyon through a mountain. I was that mountain and my children were that water.
Case in point #1: Daughter
There came a point wherein I began to realize a pattern in the girl. On this particular day she exclaimed loudly as she was wont to do, "I have nothing to wear! Oh, woe is me for having a mother who will not keep my laundry done."
HDPEWF as I was, I responded, "Oh, no! Whut? I swear to God, child, I just did all your laundry three days ago."
Thirteen-year-old girl self-righteously points to empty drawers as proof her mother is a lazy moronic employee. Now, lazy and moronic I am not. Slow on the uptake, I grant you that as I reference HDPEWF. But not lazy and not moronic and the girl went just a little bit too far that day.
If the girl had not overstepped herself I would probably still be doing her laundry to this day because...you know...HDPEWF. But she didn't and as I stood in her room and looked at multitudinous empty drawers and hangers that I knew for a certainty were full a mere three days ago, I heard it in my head.
DING! DING! DING! And we have a winner.
Going over to her laundry basket, I spied with my little eye clean and folded clothes thrown willy nilly into and around it.
I shall spare you the gory details of the confrontation that followed. Suffice it to say the girl was unhappy as she lost a wonderful employee that day, but Mama sure did find a lot more time suddenly free up in her schedule. Which brings us to...
Case in point #2: Son
Back when print brokers could actually make money, I was a print broker making some damn fine money. I also did forms fulfillment for a large car dealership group back when they used forms that had to be printed in bulk. Before technology came in and put all those forms onto this new contraption called a computer. This was a business that benefited from my propensity of HDPEWF.
My husband came home and saw me carrying heavy boxes from the truck to the second floor storage area and said, "Why is the boy not helping you?"
I stared at him blankly because it had never occurred to me to ask my baby boy to carry such big boxes. I mean, he was just this little child and to ask him, well, it would have been slave labor, and that was just wrong.
I said as much to the father of my children. It was his turn to stare blankly. "Woman, that child is six feet tall, fifteen years old, and weighs more than me. He has man muscles. Make him use them."
What a novel idea. Why, what son wouldn't want to help his mother, right? Eagerly I went to the boy, who was watching TV as he sprawled on the sofa, and I said, "Boy, come haul boxes for your mother."
He laconically replied, "Too heavy."
Slow on the uptake, that's me. Never once thinking the boy could be lying or self-deluded, I believed him, turned back to the task of the boxes, and began hauling again.
Husband sees the situation and says, "Why is the boy not hauling the boxes?"
I explain about the dear child's inability to use his muscles and that to ask him to do so might hurt him. Husband turns off boob tube, turns to boy, and says, "Get your ass up and get to hauling for your mother. Now!"
Is boy mad at Daddy? No, he is not. He is mad at Mother. But the boy gets up, complaining the whole time. Knowing Mother's penchant for HDPEWF, the boy goes about it as slowly as he could to try to force me into frustration and taking over the chore. Then the boy proceeds to say something snarky and quite disrespectful and right then I heard it in my head.
DING! DING! DING! And we have a winner.
That's when I realize I just heard a man's deep voice coming out of a body that is taller and wider than my own. A body full of man muscles. See, if the boy had not overstepped himself, to this day I would be hauling the boxes for him. But he did overstep and I said, "Oh, Son. You will regret this."
We finished the boxes and I crooked my Mother Finger at his smart mouth, smiled, and said, "Follow me, you little twit."
We went down the basement steps to where his father was grinding on some piece of metal for a car he was restoring. I tapped Daddy on the shoulder. He stopped his grinding.
I said, "I want to apologize to you. You were right. The boy's a lazy sumbitch just as you've been telling me. I deliver him to your hands to make a man of him."
The boy's eyes got big as Daddy proceeded to say, "Your ass is mine, boy." And for the next two years I never had to mow another lawn, haul wood for the fireplace, mop, sweep, put up dishes, haul another box up those stairs again, nor anything else I chose to have him do.
UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!
Both the boy and the girl are grown adults and productive members of society. Neither are lazy. But my daughter recently realized she has the same condition as me, that is, she is afflicted with HDPEWF. She had the same discussions with her children who somehow had come to believe their mother was a lazy moronic employee whose only job was to make their lives easier. I am happy to report she has disabused them of that notion.
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