My background and history has led to many of my habits, and I actually have found that many of my so called,"idiosyncratic behaviors" have actually served me very well. My grandparents were retired military, and as such, they kept everything neat,tidy, and everything had a place because it might need to be found quickly. I learned very young that if I kept my things put where they belonged, they were easier to find the next time. I also learned how to take care of my boots and clothes, including polishing and ironing,(not sewing though,I am a complete failure at that)but I can starch a military crease like nobodies business. Cleaning up after right away when I finished with whatever I was doing was something that I was taught helped to keep the house clean. And always dressing up to go out in public was just expected. I was never allowed to go to town in pajamas or house shoes like I see kids wandering about in nowadays. My grandparents would have shamed me if they had caught me out with my butt hanging out or a huge muffin top hanging over my britches. I was expected to be neat, clean, presentable, and to look as if I owned a mirror, and even though I often wore rock t-shirts and jeans, they were always decent, and as I have gotten older, I have gotten even more self conscious about it, and I find myself requiring the same behavior of my kids even when my ex would have allowed them to go about dressed only in a diaper and a dirty t-shirt.
My house is cleaned every day, and I butt heads with Chance with I tell him I want him to make his bed each morning. "Why should I make my bed,its just gonna get messed up again ?" I explain that its so the house looks neat and orderly and it helps to instill a routine and a sense of pride in himself. " No it doesn't, it annoys the crap outta me because even when I make it, you just come and re-make it because I dont get the edges right." Seriously, the boy refuses to do hospital corners properly just to annoy me. I try to get him to at least fold his sleep pants and put them in the proper place instead of wadded up in the bathroom floor, and he simply flings them through his bedroom door, where they land on his pillow and I bring up the point that his butt goes in those pants and now its on his pillow and I wonder aloud,"Is that okay with you, its not very sanitary?" He just grunts and scratches and wanders into to the kitchen and opens the fridge, preparing to reach in and grab the orange juice and drink out of the container! 'IF YOU DRINK OUT OF THAT CONTAINER IM GONNA THRASH YOU!" I yell, breaking out all three names of his in pure Texas momma. And he just blinks at me, holding the container in his hand while the fridge door is still open. He mumbles that he was going to drink the whole thing and he grumbles about the fact that I dont even drink orange juice,(no wonder,I know that he drinks outta the container), and he puts the container back and roots around the fridge a while longer, pulling out the milk. I should say at this point that he is shirtless, which is against the rules, and he starts to reach into the cupboard for a bowl when I stop him and tell him to go wash his hands and then sit down after he gets a shirt, because if he goes rooting around in the cupboard for a bowl I may just have a heart attack.
My son learned a lot of bad habits from living with my parents. My mom is the anti-housekeeper, and her house is probably the reason for many of my habits.They are also horrible procrastinators and will often either wait until the last minute to do something, or put it off until past the due date and then try and get an extension. They have been supposed to mail me my sons shot record for over 2 weeks now, and when I called yesterday, she was,'Planning on putting it in the mail today." I like to get stuff done as soon as I find out about it, that way I dont have to worry about forgetting stuff. The only things I tend to put off are papers and writing projects because I like having the pressure of an impending deadline. I work very well under pressure, in fact I thrive under it, so other than that exception I get stuff taken care of right away. Dishes get washed right away, laundry gets picked up and put in the hamper and when I have a washer I do it the minute I have a full load and then I put it away. I plan meals and organize the things I need for them. My cupboards are organized, and yes...the cans are all facing the same direction and arranged by product and type, but its so I know when I am low on something. My closets are the same way, colors with colors and styles with styles, and my boots are arranged according to color and style. Yes, the things in my bathroom are lined up and arranged according to usages and I do keep everything clean and I notice when something has been moved. Bedroom is carefully arranged and bed is made as soon as I get out of it. My routines and habits serve me well and I have the kind of memory that allows me to see things as pictures in my head, so that even when it has been awhile and my ex calls me wanting to know where something is in the house back in Flagstaff, I can tell him that the hdmi cable for the tv in the back bedroom is on the second shelf in the master closet on the right hand side about 1/3 of the way back under the spare controller for the xbox,and after he stops mumbling about me being weird and obsessive, he goes and finds it exactly where I told him. Its also how I was able to recall exactly what Stevie was wearing the day she went missing and I was able to describe it right down to her socks, and when she was found the deputy was amazed at my recall.
Some things I just cannot tolerate, and I just kinda freak out a little and perhaps go a tad bit overboard, but considering all the education I have had in regards to sanitation and cleanliness, I think its a reasonable issue. I cannot handle the thought of bugs being in my house or around me. When I was traveling alot, instead of staying in hotels I would often sleep in my truck because I KNOW how nasty hotels are, and the problem my friend is facing right now just cements that thought. Her husband had to stay in a hotel in Idaho on business a few weeks ago and it appears that he brought home a friend when he came back, bedbugs have infested her house! I wont go over there now. I hardly can even stand to be around her without itching or just being freaked out. They have already had an exterminator out and are getting things handled, but its like they are tainted now. Bugs are something that just causes me to lose my mind a little, and some types of bugs just put me a little of the deep end, like lice. Lice will get you exiled from my life. If any of my kids ever came home with them I am afraid I would just freaking move and not leave a forwarding address. Cockroaches are also unacceptable. I dont care how much I liked a guy, if I was deeply in love with a guy and I went to his place and I found cockroaches, that would be a deal breaker, its just....yech. But the one thing that will cause me to abso-fucking-lutely hurt someone is a grand daddy longlegs spider. I do not care that they are supposedly harmless. I do not care that they supposedly aren't even really spiders. I actually even like most spiders. I have no problems with snakes or mice or all kinds of other critters, but if you come near me with a grandaddy longlegs, I will cut a bitch. Its a Texas related trauma that is soo deeply rooted in my psyche that even the mention of the damn things sends a shudder up my spine, and the feeling of pure and utter dread that comes over me even seeing one just pisses me off to no end, that when a ex-boyfriend once thought it funny to try and chase me with one, I picked up a baseball bat and chased him with that, and I had to be restrained from breaking his knee caps when I caught him. I think its one of the main reasons that I just couldn't get comfortable with the idea of ever moving back to East Texas because those damn things are all over the place back there. I was very dismayed to find that they also live out here, and the one I found on my back porch yesterday quickly met a bad end before I had to hurt a boy that might have found it funny to try and harass me with it.
I always try to arrive a little early for appointments, not annoyingly so, but just enough so that I am comfortable and organized and ready to tend to the business at hand. Arriving early has served me well in the past and it was how I got some of my jobs working personal security and on sets. I would often be the first to arrive for squad meetings and that got my face right there in the Captains mind, and he knew I needed extra work as a single mom and he knew I wasn't one that really gave a crap about who someone was,(with one exception, he would not let me guard Trace Adkins), and that really hurt, but he said that I was the reason they needed security! and I enjoyed working those jobs and I was good at it, but I would have missed out if I had drug in late because there were other guys that were bigger and tougher looking and outranked me, but because I was early, I got them and they kept me and my son fed in the lean times. People who arrive late or at the last minute annoy me, its like they see their commitment as an afterthought and not something that should be taken seriously. I make allowances for life issues, but habitual lateness just gets under my skin and I dont tolerate it from anyone, its kind of like laziness.
Chance and I butt heads over some of my rules, and I know that he was allowed to get away with so many things while he was living in Texas, but is it really too much to ask of a boy to;Pick up after himself and clean up the bathroom after himself, wear a shirt to the table and not wear a hat in the house, wear a belt and keep his pants pulled up, dont fart in my kitchen or at the table, dont cuss around his baby sister, shake hands and make eye contact like the gentleman he was raised to be when he meets new folks,say ,"Please and thank you and Sir and ma'am" like he has been taught his whole life. I would let a few things slide like his bed making and maybe even how he folds his sleep pants if he would just remember his manners because I have met more than a few people,(adults included) that have no idea how they are supposed to behave.
No comments:
Post a Comment