Shall we talk about the fun of the ‘mid-life meltdowns?’ I’m sure you know what I’m talking about; when previously trivial things somehow take on extreme importance.
It all started with the bins. A quiet, then increasingly louder voice emerges with both me and LSB, a couple of days ahead of ‘bin day’. We leave our bins out on a Thursday night, in giddy anticipation of Friday morning pick up. So while normal folk look forward to weekend frivolity, we rejoice in empty bins and the restoration of order.
I blame the house sitter last year for this onset of neurosis. Of all the things she neglected to do during her two-week sojourn, managing to see that none of bins were emptied, was by far her most egregious crime. Anticipating such an event, I had left notes outlining the bin cycle in the area. I went as far as sending updates via text. (Her communication skills were somewhat poor and I had reservations before she arrived, but hey, we were desperate.) Still, there was zero bin activity. Thus when we came back, in the height of summer, we had an over-flowing recycling bin and another situation in which dog poo had been left stewing for three weeks… I won’t elaborate any further.
But this only illustrates one aspect of my ‘very boring preoccupation with minutiae.’ Do you remember the Peter Kay skit about how his mother used to practically hoover herself out of the house before going to the airport? And firing the plants into the bath? Well, readers, she ain’t the only one.
The night before an early flight and LSB is calling down the stairs, ‘Can I zip up the suitcase yet?’ but all he can hear is the whine of the Henry the hoover because I’m suddenly determined to get every last cat hair off the living room floor. This character quirk has taken me by surprise because I’m not overly fastidious when it comes to housework… usually. But something digs in when we’re vacating the premises. Another little voice likes to chirp up here: ‘What’ll happen,’ begins the interior monologue, ‘if you all get run over on holiday and professional house-cleaners have to come in and see the dust bunnies under all the beds?’ On she goes: ‘And the grimy skirty boards! The absolute STATE of the toilet bowl? And all the hair and soap that gets clotted together so it looks like a decaying mouse fungus in the shower drain.’ I kid you not. All this goes through my head. I can just imagine the news: ‘Terrible tragic about that family who came a cropper on their holidays, but the absolute state of their house? It’s a wonder they hadn’t all succumbed to scabies before. Desperate altogether.’
People, I could go on (and believe me, LSB will tell you that I do) but I worry about everything, and then the worrying incapacitates me so I worry about doing nothing constructive, and I worry about my liver because of all the wine I drink to make all the worrying recede a little. Would you be so good as to let me know what you worry about during the holiday season, and then I can worry a little less about being a basket- case? Comments gratefully received.