Search This Blog

Tuesday 9 June 2009

Inconsequentials

No - not my granny's term for underwear but the sheer amount of brain clogging stuff I seem to wade through on the domestic front before during and after any proper work can be achieved. Last week I sat through the numbing spectacle of a classful of five year olds muttering something inaudible about Farmer Duck. Despite my utterly brilliant Girl saving the show by muttering inadibly with her usual star quality, I sat, mind racing with all the crap that had to be done that day. Inconsequential crap. That nobody would notice. Unless it wasn't done.

1. Buy a green t-shirt for The Girl's Sports Day.
2. Run very fast past the School Office in case the long clawed arm of the PTA suddenly shot out. Remember those bits in the Hammer films when Christopher Lee shouts: Don't look into the eyes! PTA is just like that. You stop for a five minute chat and two seconds later you've been seconded into baking 200 cakes, directing the school panto for the next five years and supervising the school trip to Beijing. Any feeble protests about a full time job don't get you off the hook either.
3. Pick up half eaten worms off the kitchen floor. The cats have given up on offering live frogs and now feel my tastes extend to decomposing worms instead.
5. Pick up Husband's dry cleaning. I go to the dry cleaner's so often he actually smiles at me. Maybe he likes me! Husband perks up. Maybe he'll give you a discount.
6. Water the tomatoes. Wonder why they're not growing faster. Go back upstairs to office and wonder what that terrible smell is emanating from The Boy's bedroom.
7. Discover that the pillowcase I deliberately stuffed with The Boy's half-eaten apples and sandwiches that he left by the side of the bed (deciding to Show Him The Consequences of His Actions) - he has been peacefully sleeping on for the past week and the contents of said pillow are now green and pulpy. He hasn't even noticed! Resist squealing like a girl.
8. Look out of window and see next door's cat trying to have a poo on my tomatoes. Shout in rage and shake fist ineffectively. Cat looks at me then strolls off tail in the air in that fuck you manner that cats have down pat.
9. Sit down at computer. Get writer's block.
10. Get biscuit to help with writer's block. Decide to water the plants again with hose. See next door's cat on the shed roof. Deliberately turn the hose on the little shitter. Feel better.
11. Writer's block gone. Hurrah! Do some work.
12. Hear loud knock at door. Peep out of window and recognise old bag from No 42 and owner of probably very wet cat. Think about confronting her with her cat's tomato crapping habit and my just revenge.
13. Hide under the desk instead till she goes away.
14. Lunchtime!

It's all my fault. And it will be better tomorrow. But it feels so foolish when Producer rings and asks when the draft of script will be ready. Life keeps getting in the way. It sounds so feeble. It is. But it does.

7 comments:

Dan said...

I found my next door neighbors cat chasing my chickens around my garden today. Perhaps we should set up some sort of support group.

Jane said...

Bloody hell Dan! I hope those chickens gave the cat a good pecking.

The wife of bold said...

haha..i love how you referred to the cat as a little "shitter", i'm not a fan of cats either, don't blame you for hosing it down.

Helen P said...

Well Jane, all I can say is you fit a LOT MORE in than I do before lunchtime...

Product Placement said...

This made me feel a) very amused and b) so much better. I thought it was just me that had a permanent random list of crapola in my head.
I actually don't think men have this. They just have their next goal in the form of a tidy list of one thing, e.g 1. Eat lunch or 1. Watch World's Wildest Police Videos or 1. Go to bed.
It's not fair.

Jane said...

PP! That's so true. I remember Arabella Weir from The Fast Show saying that even as she's writing away she's thinking: Oooh must get that laundry on so it'll be dry by bedtime. There's not a man alive who thinks like that.

It's so true - the crapola that is.

Kim Hruba said...

Your "to do" list has left me feeling liberated! Yay! It helps to know that we're not slogging it alone.

Think of it as being flexible...That's a good quality, isn't it?