So,
you’re in the kitchen, perhaps slicing some carrots. A piece rolls
a bit, reaches the end of the cutting board, and tumbles. Off
the board, off the counter, down to the floor. You finish up with
the chopping and then go to retrieve that piece.
But
you can’t find it.
It’s
not on the floor near you. Not on the floor at all that you can
see.
Down
on your hands and knees, extensive search being performed, but
nothing to show for the efforts.
Of
course, there’s a catch. There are options for blame in this what
happened disappearing act. Maybe it’s the stove. Maybe the fridge.
But there’s something just close enough that the piece of carrot
could have bounced and rolled and made its way underneath and
out of sight. After all, you know a piece fell. No doubt about
it. It fell. The issue isn’t if it fell, it’s where it landed.
Which
leads us to this: Did you pull the stove out to pick up that piece
of carrot?
We’re
all friends here. You don’t even need to answer. You know the
truth.
(Actually,
we know the truth as well. There’s a small piece of carrot under
your stove.)
Sometimes
I wonder about the little things around the house that get shrugged
off. Making the bed is a good one. It’s kind of an automatic reset
there, since you don’t make it and by going back to bed the next
night you wipe the slate clean. (But you’re not making it tomorrow,
so back where you started with that. Vicious cycle.)
For
me, it becomes more obvious an issue with things like a counter
or kitchen table. At first, it’s a spot to place that piece of
mail you can’t read right now but need to look over in the next
few days. Then it’s the stuff from the shopping trip that get
stored in the hallway closet, but you’re not headed that way.
Soon a sweatshirt has been placed over a chair, the magazines
you’re giving to a friend take up a corner, and within a week
or two the table has become a disorganized catch all of assorted
stuff.
Today
I went to do the dishes. And I actually paused because there were
clean dishes in the rack next to the sink. I mean, I was all set
to wash some pots and a few utensils. But put clean stuff away
first? That seemed like a lot of effort. I debated putting it
off. Then I put the dishes away, cleaned the dirty, and took satisfaction
from a four-minute job well-done. (But I was really close to heading
along a different path. Really close.)
Back
to the carrot.
(And
the kitchen table.)
Often
though, it seems like it’s not that easy. You put aside one piece
of junk mail… just one… intending to flip through it and shred
whatever needs to be shredded from it. While maybe it takes a
week or two, it really feels like overnight that piece of mail
has turned into a stack of unwanted stuff. It’s gone from taking
a few seconds to a sit-down project. And none of us want to invest
time in that.
Seasons
are beginning to flop. I know there are actually four, but the
reality is that dealing with snow means there are two. First is
when you need the lawn mower. Second is when you need the shovels.
Summer and winter, those are the seasons. Fall and spring are
nice enough—and October is actually a favorite month of mine—but
let’s face it, both of them are transitional more than functional.
It’s
time to get ready for one or two more laps with the ride on mower.
A last clearing of grass, more the dealing with leaves. Time to
check the shed for things like the snow blower that have been
stored and need to be moved to the garage.
And
yet, I wait. Eventually, if I don’t get to it, a threat of snow
will have me checking things out and moving stuff around. But
like a carrot under the fridge, it’s not like it’s hurting anybody.
I
think.
But
then again, I’ve got a pile of junk mail to sort and some shredding
to do that have me wondering otherwise.