Across the Great Divide...

... between men and women. More fun from my friend, Tracy Farr. And men wonder why we sometimes get in a snit.... Enjoy...

I would get up and do something, but everything’s done

So here I am, sitting on the couch on a lazy Saturday afternoon, thinking I really should get up and do something, or fix something, or paint something, but I can’t make up my mind what I should do, fix or paint.

And it doesn’t help that my wife is scurrying around trying to organize the magazines that will only get unorganized in a week or two. And I think she may even be doing a little bit of dusting.

It’s not every day I find myself with nothing to do, but it does happen. Mostly I take care of my goats, practice banjo a bit, I may fix myself a cup of coffee or maybe a bowl of ice cream, but there’s always something to do – except for today. Today my slate is clean, my page is blank, my To Do List is done and I have absolutely nothing on the agenda.

Okay, now she wants me to help her decide which magazines to keep and which ones to throw out. If she could just push that stack over here next to the couch, maybe I could help her, but she wants me to come over there – at a time when I’m putting enormous amounts of thought into figuring out what I need to do today, and I really should…

The truck. I need to check the oil in the truck. I don’t think it’s low or anything, but I did notice an oil leak on the ground the other day as I was pulling away from Wal-mart. But then again, that could have been someone else’s oil leak. In fact, I’m sure it was. And I’d hate to go check the oil now, considering the ground is all muddy, which means my feet would get all muddy, and I wouldn’t want to track a lot of dirt through the house, seeing that my wife is now vacuuming.

Boy, that vacuum cleaner is loud. It’s hard to get some good quality thinking done with all that racket going on. And she pushes that thing like there’s a time limit; like she put in her last quarter, and once that quarter runs out, she can’t do anymore. I mean she’s really working up a sweat. I wonder if she’s vacuuming like that to get her daily exercise in, instead of going to some gym or something. Well, I guess I might have to move, because I really need to figure out what I’m going to do.

Wait a minute, I remember – I was going to fix the leak under the house today. It’s not a bad leak, just some PVC that’s come apart, letting all the water from the washing machine flow out into our front yard. I went under the house about a month ago, saw that the pipes might come apart soon if I didn’t fix it, but I didn’t, because it looked like it would last a few more weeks. But now there’s water everywhere, and I would get under the house to repair it, but it’s too cold, and getting under the house during the winter is really nasty. I think it can wait until May, or maybe June. Water is good for the grass, anyway, so it can’t hurt too much.

Okay, she’s finished vacuuming, but now what is she doing? Ah, dishes. I thought about doing the dishes, but since our dishwasher is broken and we have to do them by hand, and I hate doing them by hand, I didn’t do them. I guess I’ll get back to washing dishes when I get around to calling the repairman, but this is the weekend and I doubt repair shops are even open.

Who wants to work on a weekend, anyways? I know I don’t. I much prefer sitting on this couch, maybe watching a movie or two, because I work hard during the week and I think that maybe I deserve some downtime. Some good quality, pick my feet off the floor, downtime. And I wish she’d stop flitting around doing all that work because she’s making me feel just a wee bit guilty that I don’t have anything to do and she’s…

She’s taking out the garbage. Big bags. Right out the front door, down the steps, through the mud, and it’s still a bit chilly outside, but she’s doing it anyway. I guess I could open the door for her when she…

Oh well, she’s already back inside. She doesn’t look happy. I wonder why?

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Tracy Farr lives in East Texas with his wife, three children and some goats. To read more of his stories, visit his Web site