I've been in Minnesota the past couple of weeks. The idea
was to help my parents clean out their house because they're supposed to move
to Georgia, too, but they haven't gotten very far. Keep in mind, it's been
three years since I started working in Atlanta and almost two years since I
moved all my worldly goods to my new home. This is also despite phone calls
where my parents would give me updates on how much work they're getting done.
Um, yeah, not so much. This isn't the first time I've
returned home and expected more progress than I've seen, but I actually thought
that they were serious now and would actually get going. I was wrong.
When I traveled up to Minnesota to clean out the junk in my
house, especially the heavy accumulation in the basement, we'd work 12 hours or
more every day. My parents would come over and help me. I also went up with a
plan on what we'd tackle to get the most accomplished in the shortest amount of
time.
I expected this same thing from my parents last October and
didn't get it, so I suggested a month ahead of time that they come up with a
plan to use my time up north this April to the best advantage. Do you think
they did this? No.
In fact, we hardly spent any time cleaning out the house at
all. Let's talk about a typical day.
I will take my share of the blame for the morning dawdling.
I'm bad about this and I know it. I like to sip my coffee and take my time, but
once I get ready, I'm good to go. My parents? Not so much. They dawdle in the
morning, too. Breakfast and the newspaper take forever. Okay, until around
11ish, but this is longer than it takes me.
Are we ready to get started at 11am? Of course not. Now my
dad has to go to the grocery store, and of course, we can't do anything without
him. He gets home around 12:45, but we can't begin working now because it's
lunch time. My parents dawdle through another meal.
I make the huge mistake of saying, "The mailman's
here."
Instead of leaving the mail there until later, my dad runs
out to get it. This wastes another hour as they read their junk mail. Who the
hell opens their junk mail and reads it?
The clock is now saying it's after 3pm and we've yet to do
anything. At long last, we head for the basement. My mom won't get rid of
anything. Anything!
The sequin kits she bought in the 1970s as a project to add
bling to clothes? She's can't donate those because she's going to use them.
Never mind that sequins on clothes isn't exactly a fashion do right now. Never
mind that she's had them sitting for
forty years already. Never mind that she didn't even remember buying them.
Never mind that she's never been that into crafts. Those kits must not leave
her possession because she's suddenly decided that she'll use them.
Same thing with the Santa craft kit and the material she's
going to sew and the yarn and the rug kits. Well, you get the idea. All the
crafts that she's never done in decades are now things she's going to work on
once she moves to Atlanta.
Sure she will.
After about 90 minutes of arguing over everything with my
mom, my dad announces we should go upstairs and start working on dinner.
That's right. It's time for yet another meal. Of course, we
don't go back down after dinner to do any additional work. Why would we
possibly want to do that? Variations on this theme happened every single day.
Some days we didn't get more than an hour of time in. I'm still not sure how
this is possible, but it explains why my parents have accomplished exactly
nothing.
I have a couple more stories, so stay tuned for
more fun in helping my parents downsize.
