Once again I am cranky, which is happening with slightly more regularity.
Could it be age? If so, in 10 years I will be strapped in a chair with my mouth duct-taped.
The first issue is the washing machine and dryer. Laundry habits reflect my lifelong regime.
Every Monday I change the bed and wash the sheets and pillow cases along with whatever “whites” have accumulated during the week (hot water and Clorox). The “colors and towels” (warm water and Clorox colors) are done on an as-needed basis in order to prevent me from becoming morbidly obsessive — although I still do not trust cold water detergents.
There is a lot more to life than laundry.
My present washing machine and dryer are, at the very least, 30 years old, manufactured in the days when appliances were meant to last. Now they expire every seven years in order to keep factory employment stable and corporate earnings at inflatable rates.
The washing machine is so old that the writing on the lid is illegible, and the corners are rusting. Our appliances are replaced every 10 years. Somehow it was decided that despite their sorry state, the washer and dryer would not be replaced until I had resided the allotted time. Talk about cranky!
Four Mondays ago I lifted out soggy sheets, plus there was a spot of rust on a pillowcase. The harridan me burst forth. I wanted new appliances immediately! And so it was granted.
But since life in the good old USA becomes increasingly deranged, the appliances are on backorder and will not be available until Nov. 28. “Patience is not simply the ability to wait — it is how we behave while we are waiting.” — Joyce Meyer.
I am not behaving well at all.
Cranky issue #2: Time change. While this is the first subject Congress has agreed upon since the Sam Rayburn years, why could we not have stayed on daylight savings time instead of waiting until next spring? Does anyone care that my circadian rhythms will take months to adjust, only to be thrown again into chaos when we go back? I am waking up at 5:30 as opposed to 6:30. What does one do at 5:30 in the morning?
Take a run? Not this aging chick. I’m not even hungry at 5:30.
Thomas Barr, that turncoat, does not like poetry. With just days until his retirement, this seems a good time to throw in a little free verse:
A New Zealander in 1895 declared DST the time to arise thus lengthen daylight enterprise. (I have a feeling New Zealand didn’t have open outdoor bars.) Adding credence was Benjamin Franklin’s dictum, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
Sorry gentlemen, but I find it quite insane to continue to play this seasonal game.
Ann Kuehn resides at Ohio Living Cape May in Wilmington. She says, “I gravitated to Ohio at age 18 and never left” and moved to Sabina in 1987.
