Back in Plato’s Bullshit Cave Again

It was a cabin fever kind of day. I don’t really know what to say about this winter. So far, it’s been a death by a thousand nibbles and those nibbles have been assorted vomiting and a string of colds. I thought I was finally blissfully alone and then someone else walks in with a battery of questions about how my day was and what’s new?

Today I sent Franny off at the front door as I was home with her ailing sister, who announced at bedtime tonight “I WILL BE RETURNING TO SCHOOL TOMORROW,” thank god, and Franny agreed to let the chickens out before she headed off to the bus.

“Can you manage the gate?” I said.

“Oh yes, no problem, I’ve done it.”

“Okay, bye,” I said, closing the door. “Thanks so much for taking care of the chickens for me.” What a score. I would not have to go out in the frosty cold.

Nine o’clock came and I started wondering about how they were doing out there. It had snowed, perhaps their water was icing over? I went out to check. They were shut up tight…maybe the door had just blown shut, which happens very occasionally if it is storming. No, latched tight. Somehow my kid had left the house as I was thanking her for and reminding her of the task she was immediately to do…and she forgot it, instantly. I spent the rest of the day slightly dumbfounded and made a point to ask her when she got home.

“So…let’s talk about chickens,” I said. She was at the table beginning her homework and her shoulders tensed up. “What happened?”

“I just forgot,” she said, and began crying. “I don’t know what’s WRONG with me,” she wailed. “I’m so forgetful.”

I’ve got her back on supper dish duty with the idea that she contributes to the household and learns how to clean things, which is something that takes years to be good at, I think. Some nights the table does not get cleared, some nights pots are left on the stove. For a week now she has burned my cast iron skillet because she walks off while giving it a quick dry on a burner to avoid rust. The smell has been ghastly.

Long story short, we’re deep in the domestic trenches right now. This is the daily grind of family life that is tedious to write about, much less hear about. And yet I have to tell myself as people cough and sneeze on me and forget things and spill red nail polish on my labyrinth rug I have to remember that these are all building blocks and some day there will be that perfect day where everyone will remember everything and no one will eat my birthday ice cream and no one will vomit on anyone. And on that day I am guessing we will all be DEAD.

9 thoughts on “Back in Plato’s Bullshit Cave Again

  1. Ooh sympathy, that was definitely me. Afraid it took me about 35 years to get to the point of not screwing up all physical tasks, and I’m still only about 50% there. Turns out I was in pain the whole time and nobody realised, but not sure if that is usually the cause or whether some people are just not wired for practicality….

  2. Hells yeah one day no one will eat your birthday ice cream! I remember growing up with my brothers and being HEARTBROKEN to find out that someone had the nerve to finish the ____________ (fill in the blank: rhubarb cobbler, bread pudding, blueberry slump, or something else delicious and homemade that you can’t just buy at the store).

    The only thing is, no one eats that stuff anymore but me because I’m all alone. No brothers within thousands of miles. I miss them! I would make them cobbler if they would come and visit with me. And they could finisih whatever they want.

  3. Oh god, thats me. I’m 22 and regularly my little sister posts on my facebook “you left the stove on again i turned it off for you lol”. As in, every time I cook, I get these messages. The hoard of siblings I live with all mock me for being “like Nana” and writing lists everywhere because I am incapable of remembering things even immediately after you tell me. IT IS THE WORST.

    Mostly, no one makes me do anything, though. I fuck up so regularly that I’ve been informed that the only duty I have around the house is to maintain my own belongings.

    On the plus side, I no longer have to vacuum, dust, do the dishes, do other peoples laundry, et cetera.
    On the negative, last week I tried to cook for myself, turned on the wrong burner, and heated up a 60s ceramic ovenware pot with this excellent bird of paradise print.. uh. It was pretty, it was mine. It was shattered into a thousand pieces that I stared at hopelessly for a few minutes. Also, inexplicably, I’d put a pearl necklace inside? I think I used the pot last as a container for cookies at Thanksgiving and jewelry had made its way in at the end of the night. … I don’t have that necklace anymore either.

    oh well. this is why we cant have nice things.

  4. I should really begin the campaign to teach my tiny space cadet how to do the dishes.

    I hope you feel better soon. Do you have human visitors who bring you things and massage you and tidy your bedside? If not you should put out a call for some. You’ve been sick quite a while!

  5. Thanks, Liz. I’m okay now, but now the rest of my house is sick. It has been the winter of 10,000 microbes. We are making due with Amazon Fresh grocery delivery and mucking out when we can. I feel like everyone’s in the same boat right now here, or slammed. I am trying to work with two sick girls here, and yes, after 6 weeks of up and down my mental health is suffering slightly. I need to get back to work on my book!

  6. Oh, boy, can I sympathize with Franny. I, like a lot of other people here apparently, frequently forget to turn off the oven. I forget to grab my keys as I walk out of the house and lock myself out. This is made even more lulzy/frustrating when you hear that my keys hang on a hook RIGHT BESIDE THE DOOR. I literally just have to reach up and grab them. I forget my cell phone. I get up to do something and forget what I got up to do. That’s just what goes on now that I am ostensibly an adult. I don’t even want to think about what it was like for my mom when I was a kid!

    Yet, I’m considered “the memory” by most people I know because I remember just about everything else. I guess maybe my brain is too busy trying to remember everything else that it forgets the tasks I’m supposed to do?

    I did discover a method of, I guess you might call it anchoring, that works pretty well for me. I put my left thumb between my first and second fingers while making a fist, while concentrating what I need to remember. It works pretty well, as does not leaving the room while something else is going on. For instance, I could put the pan on the stove to dry and stand there, ideally watching it, until it’s dry.

  7. I have to use the oven timer when we dry off the cast iron pan like that, otherwise I forget all about it. And I have not been a girl for a long time now. Am just embarking on teaching cleaning skills to my four year olds. So far they are doing ok with dustpan and brush. It’s the timeframe of parenthood isn’t it…things take years.

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