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The sign was meant to be funny: "The older I get, the more I appreciate being home doing absolutely nothing."
Instead of laughing, I pumped my fist in the air and yelled, "Truth!"
Then I gathered up the pack of payments to drop off at the post office, stuffed the shopping list in my pocket, slid the recycling basket toward the back door, tried to remember where I dropped the car keys, and headed off the homestead. Again.
When I was kid, I moaned because I never got to go ANYWHERE!
My parents always were running off to exotic-sounding places like "work" and "committees" and "errands" and "meetings." I had to stay home to clean my room.
The only time they wanted to take me along was when the trip involved the doctor's office. It was the one time I begged to stay home.
"When I grow up, I'm NEVER going to sit home and do nothing," I vowed.
I got my wish.
Now where do I go to give it back?
Since I landed a mortgage of my very own, it seems that I never get to stay home. Well, not to do nothing, anyway. Chores sprout like weeds. (Oh yeah, I gotta pull those weeds. Mark it on the list.)
Instead of the freedom to do whatever I wanted that I thought was an entitlement of adulthood, I'm bogged down more than ever because instead of one room, they're ALL my rooms. There's something to be cleaned, put away, fixed, painted or finished everywhere I look.
So I collapse in my chair and close my eyes.
But I can't close my ears. If my wife catches me doing absolutely nothing, her voice reminds me sweetly of the cleaning, awaying, fixing, painting or finishing. Or weeding. At least the first few reminders are said sweetly. After that, her tone becomes decidedly less sweet, and once again, my goal of nothingness comes to nothing.
When did that which used to sound so hopelessly dull and boring as a kid -- staying home and doing nothing -- transform into an impossible dream of such hopeless luster and excitement as a grownup?
I hardly ever get to stay home. The stupid planner on my phone is always beeping me off to places like "work" and "committees" and "errands" and "meetings." Nary a one of them is exotic.
On top of that, I STILL have to go to the doctor's office. Several of them. I've reached the age when doctors expect to find things wrong with me. When they can't, they schedule me for even more tests, in case another peek will turn up an ailment or two.
"You know," I said to my wife, "if it weren't for the other old guys I run into in the waiting rooms, I'd have no social life at all."
"Uh-huh," she said. "When are you going to stay home long enough to fix the kitchen sink leak, change the dining room light, and clean the garage?"
"Let's see, the seminar is Tuesday, we have church Wednesday, there's the book signing, which reminds me, the library books are overdue again, and the car goes into the shop… ten minutes ago. Oh, no! Gotta run. Again."
Someday, I am going to stay home and do absolutely nothing. Today, as it's been ever since I grew up, is not that day.
— If you get a minute at home, write Cole at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.