Past Deadline: Call Me Anything But Patient

This column, published in The Perth Courier on Tuesday, June 9/09 effectively updates everyone on the Miracle Headache Cure mentioned in the previous post. The jinx headache lasted about a day and a half. Oh joy. BUT! On Monday I went on a field trip with Boychild. It featured about 40 Grade 1 students. I travelled on a school bus for about two hours. I spent the morning at a museum and half the afternoon at a McDonalds with a Playland. At the end of this six-hour field trip? No headache! It's a first! So I still haven't lost hope that I'm on to something....

Call me anything but patient

Depending on who you ask, people will say I’m a lot of things: charming, funny, stunningly beautiful, brilliant, humble, prone to hyperbole, etc. Ahem.

I can’t imagine anyone describing me as “patient.”

A million years ago when I worked at The Courier I did a feature interview on a high-ranking military person who had retired to the area. As per usual, I showed up five minutes early. I can’t stand being late for stuff. I’d rather be an hour early than 10 minutes late. I get this trait from my dad. Anyway, my interview subject greeted me at the door with a hearty, “Ah! You’re right on time! In the military ‘right on time’ is five minutes early.” Clearly, then, I should join the army.

This need to be early does not bode well with the more relaxed members of my family, who call me impatient. I’m the “C’mon! Hurry up! Let’s go! We’re going to be late!” mom. It does not help in reducing anxiety levels among the not-so-relaxed members of my family.

Most of the time I like to finish a job I have started. (Disclaimer: this does not apply to the 2006 spring cleaning, which is ongoing.) Some people in my house find this annoying. I think they are unreasonable. Let’s take the dishes for example. No, really, please take my dishes.

Ahem. Anyway, if I’m going to do the dishes, I stack them, fill the sink and do the darned things. Other people in my house stack them, fill the sink, wander away to “let them soak” and come back hours later to either a) wash them in tepid water or b) waste the water by refilling the sink.
Can you believe it? (Big, dramatic sigh.)

It puts me in a tough position. I complain about not getting enough help with the dishes, so when others make overtures to do them, I should be pleased. Should I be pleased about the sink being tied up for several hours while the dishes are “soaking”? If I get particularly impatient, I will just go ahead and do the darned things myself before the water gets tepid. Then, of course, I grumble sarcastically about it. (I have been described as sarcastic. Even sarcastic and short.) That’s when I get guff. “Well, I told you to leave them for me to do. If you’re weren’t so impatient….”

I would probably let the dishes soak for days if it weren’t for the fact we a) don’t have a double sink and b) would run out of dishes. This leads me to question the difference between being impatient and being practical.

Speaking of practical, I have learned I need to sometimes quell my enthusiasm. Patience would be helpful.

Here’s an example. I am prone to headaches. Not bad ones – just annoying ones that make life more tedious. Recently I came to the pleasant realization that weeks had passed since my last headache.

“Oh, joy!” I proclaimed. Then I pondered what could possibly be causing this new, happy thing. What was I doing differently? The only thing I could think of was that a couple of months ago I started taking cod liver oil capsules to boost overall health (since my diet and exercise habits have, um, relaxed to the point that even my fat pants are laughing at me).

Could that be it? I did some online searching. Not surprisingly (since you can find stuff on the Internet to support pretty much any argument) I found some articles that heartily endorse cod liver oil as a way to prevent headaches.

Naturally I announced this good news to all who would listen. “I’m cured!” I proclaimed. “It’s a miracle! Who would have guessed cod liver oil capsules are the headache remedy of champions!” Because y’all know I’m a champion. For sure.

Surely you can guess where this is going. Even though I touched wood, spun in circles three times and said “no jinxies” forwards and backwards, the inevitable happened. It’s the first one in weeks, but welcome back headache.

Clearly my personal clinical trial needed a few more months of experimentation before any grand proclamations were released.

Patience. Definitely not my middle name.