Ten Minute Missive

I’ve been lamenting for several days over the sad, sad condition of my kitchen floor. I’m pretty sure that if it were any more sticky, I’d loose either a flip-flop or a 6 year old in there. But of course, mopping said floor is never very high on my list of things to do. (Obviously.) But this morning, as I schlepped across the kitchen to the coffee maker, my slippers making a sound much like when I give my dog peanut butter, I figured I’d better actually mop the dang thing. And therein lies the story.

 This is my mop bucket. My friend Susan N. painted it for me after Oldest was born. It’s a great mop bucket and not simply because it’s adorned with fish. You’d think I’d want that bucket real handy like, in case I should ever get the urge to say, mop things. However, this awesome mop bucket lives on the shelf in my laundry room. This is due in part because I seem to lack said mopping urges as well as much storage space in more accessible places like under the kitchen sink. So it’s this shelf — above my stacked washer and dryer.

In case you are new here (hello kind visitor!) I’m not tall. As in 5’2″ not tall. And I’m also pretty impulsive. So 9 times out of 10, like this morning for example, I use the handle of a broom to coax that bucket off the shelf and into my hands. If this sounds like a technique ripe for disaster, well you’d be right.

Usually right about the time I drop the broom in order to take a protective stanch as the bucket smacks me on the head, a wee voice calls out to me from my sub-concious: “Just how hard would it be to get a chair?”

And, of course, the answer is not that hard at all. If I’d ever think about things past A, B, and C. (Over the years I have found that the disaster usually starts up at about D.)

But I’m a slow learner on these things. Or I should say I’m too impulsive about these things. I decide to do something and I do it, eschewing the alphabet past B most of the times.

Take for example just about every baking experience I’ve undertaken since 2005 when we built our kitchen. You’d think that if the owner of a house is short and that owner also really likes to cook and bake, then the brand-spanking-new kitchen the owner adds to her house would accommodate more than just her cooking and baking predilections. You’d think that, wouldn’t you.

But it doesn’t. Instead, almost every part of my kitchen ranges from just a bit too tall for me to way the freak too tall for me to reach.

But my issues with the alphabet come into play while baking as well. This basket holds my baking soda, baking powder, et cetera. All the stuff a baker needs to utilize if that baker wants baked goods to actually turn out. So every time I whip up a batch of chocolate chip banana muffins for my kids, I open this cupboard, get one of my knives out of the knife block and use the knife tip to ease the basket forward until it drops…and I catch it…more or less. Sometimes with my hand, sometimes with my face, sometimes with my shoulder….

I know.

There are three digits in my IQ and if they mean anything bigger than a stack of steaming pancakes I should have figured out a better way to navigate my world than a broom stick and a sharp knife.

But alas, I haven’t.

However, I do have great stories. Well, maybe not great but with liberal application of a beverage and some gestures thrown in for good measure, I seem to make my family laugh at me.

How about you? Do you do dumb things even though you know better? Come on, there’s no way I’m the only one. Right? Hello…tap, tap, is this thing on? Bueller?