Laughing at myself - it keeps me human.

2 of 5 talks about making up a T shirt to say, “I broke my sister’s toys to keep her human.”  An inner family-joke, this refers to the fact that my two oldest sisters have, shall we say, an interesting history.  They didn’t particularly like each other as children, and spent much of their formative years trying to torture and/or torment each other.  Come to think of it, I’m not sure if they have ever really stopped.  Well, in similar manner, I am also working on staying human – by laughing at myself.  

 

I know that my anal-retentive nature is really annoying.  I know that my obsessive-compulsive behavior can drive people crazy.  Heck, sometimes it drives me crazy.  I know that it doesn’t make me better than anyone else on the street.  It is just the method to my madness, and how I function.  Sadly, it can come across as arrogant and self-centered.  But if it is any consolation to anybody out there, it kicks me in the butt sometimes, too.

 

This past weekend, our lawn specialist (and yes, I really DO think of him as that.  Heck, if I knew how to keep the grass green, I would do it myself!) took me for a little stroll around the front yard.  He pointed out a couple of problems with some of the sprinklers.  Now that we have a border-garden of roses, many of the sprinkler heads require extensions.  Also, one or two of the sprinklers up in the front section are no longer functioning correctly, and needed to be replaced.  This really shouldn’t be a major rocket-science type of a thing, but I have little to no experience with plumbing or sprinklers or such.

 

Trip #1 to Home Depot became an exercise in frustration.  Walking down the plumbing aisle, I figured I would be able to quickly find what I was looking for.  EEEEEEEEK!!!

I had no idea there were so FREAKEN’ many types of sprinkler heads, and connections, and pipes and tubes and gadgets.  I lost thirty minutes wandering up and down the aisles, trying not to panic as my concentration was shot by the sheer magnitude of stuff. 

 

Eventually, having managed to ward of hyperventilating in a confused-panic, I made my purchases and fought rush-hour traffic to get home.  Proud of my accomplishments, I got out of the car and immediately made my way to the sprinkler heads needing to be replaced.  I unscrewed them and… DAMNIT!  The thread is the wrong way!  The extensions are male-threaded on both sides.  Where’s the female end?  I need an in-thingy for the out-thingy to go-into.  ARRRRRGH!  Oh, and the sprinkler head that I bought to replace the broken one in front was too short.  I needed a different one.  DOUBLE-ARRRRGH!!!!!

 

Trip #2 to Home Depot became another exercise in frustration.  I had no FREAKEN’ idea that there were so many types of joint-thingies to connect thingy-one to thingy-two in various ways, shapes, sizes, and positions.  The plumbing aisle is like its own perverted kama sutra of the sprinkler world.  After looking by myself for a half hour and having no luck, I bit the bullet of man-dom, and pushed the button calling for help.  (Oh, the Humanity!)  Eventually, an orange-aproned angel-of-mercy showed up.  Mustering up my inner Tim-Taylor, I spoke the lingo and told him that I needed a ½ inch male to female pipe adapter.  (Pretty impressive talk, eh?)  He, of course, found the adapters in absolutely no time, leaving me feeling like a complete idiot.  For yes indeed, I really HAD been standing right in front of them all along.  ARGH!

 

On the drive home, I felt pretty satisfied.  I spoke the lingo, and I got what I wanted.  But while waiting in the stand-still that was rush-hour traffic, I pulled out one of the extender pipes to screw it into the adaptor.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!  There were no THREADS in the adaptor!!!!!!  I got the wrong thing!!!!!!  So I had now lost the time spent in the store, and the return trip of doom, and all I had to show for it was one replacement sprinkler head, and a bunch of adaptors that needed to be returned.

 

Angry over the lost time, and the feeling of foolishness, I became all focused when I got home.  My mission had been made of total fail except for one thing – the replacement sprinkler head.  And by god, I was going to have ONE victory today!  Getting out of the Jeep with a mission, I had my attaché case in one hand (since I had gone to Home Depot directly from work), and the bags of items (most of which needed to be returned now), in the other.  Getting to the front door, I dropped everything off and stared intently at the broken sprinkler in the front.  Now under ordinary circumstances, I would have been smart.  Still in my work-clothes, it would have made more sense to go inside, drop off all of my stuff, and get changed.  But did I do that?  NOOOOOO!  I was, after all, obsessed.

 

Dropping everything off except for the one sprinkler head, I nearly sprinted to the front section of the yard, unscrewed the broken head, and tried to install the new one.  I needed a victory!  NOW!!!!!  Of course, too much dirt had collapsed into the hole, and I couldn’t fit the new fitting into place.  ARGH!  Running back for a hand spade, there I was, still in business dress, digging by hand in the yard, trying to get to the sprinkler connection.  Eventually, I cleared off enough of the connection to get the sprinkler head in place.  And I was only, well, semi-dirty by this point.  Heading over to the sprlinkler box, I hit the autostart button to see what would happen.  The sprinklers came on, including the one that I had just installed.  Everything seemed to be working… EXCEPT for the one that I just installed.  The sprinkler head came up, but it was barely spurting.  WTF?????!!!!!  Walking over to the head, I smacked it on top to see if it was stuck.  Water was flowing, but it seemed to be clogged.  “Aha!” I thought to myself.  “I bet the pipe got clogged with dirt while I was digging.” 

 

I really don’t know what happened next, but clearly all sense of logic, smarts, and self-preservation went completely out the window.  Despite the fact that I know better, I began to unscrew the sprinkler head.  And sure enough, a four-foot jet of muddy water came gushing up, completely soaking me and my business clothes in a dirty goo, providing the busy street of passer-byers quite the show of idiot-yuppy-guy-in-his-natural-habitat.

 

Suppressing a LOUD show of turrets syndrome, I calmly power-walked my way over to the control box to turn off the sprinklers, as if everything that had happened thus far was exactly as I had planned.  Calmly walking back to the scene of the tragedy, I again screwed the new head in place before making sure that, yes indeed, it was working correctly.  Soaked, dirty, and muddy, I was now at my own personal rock-bottom of the plumbing world.  But at least the sprinkler head was now working.  Having witnessed one tiny accomplishment, following a series of actions made of complete and utter LOSE, I went into the house to rinse off my muddy clothes in the shower, and take mental inventory of my losses.  At that point, I was faced with a choice – beat myself up over so many screw ups and lost time, or laugh.  In a rather rare instance, I chose the latter.

 

I have a lot of good attributes - I’m pretty smart, usually pretty practical, a damned good cook, etc.  But “Handyman” is not, and has never been, one of my descriptors.  I’m sure that some day I will look back upon this episode with a little bit more of a “let this be a lesson to you, children” attitude.  But for now, it reminds me simply that I am a student in this schoolhouse known as life.  And we’ll just say that I did not earn an A+ and a happy-face sticker on this particular exam.  So today I am laughing about it – it keeps me human.

Bootscootin’ update

I feel like such a dolt. So far… it just isn’t coming naturally… AND THAT DRIVES ME FOOT-STOMPIN’ CRAZY!

 

“Calm DOWN, Joe”, you are probably thinking to yourself. “Quit being a perfectionist. Relax, and just learn to have fun.”

 

And in typical, rebellious, annoying form, my response would be, “Um, have you MET me?!” 

 

I’ll admit it – I’m an anal-retentive, perfectionist who pushes himself really, really hard. While I am typically pretty patient with other people and learning curves, I am not patient with myself. I’m a dancer, after all. And a dance instructor at that! For nearly two decades, I have taught the pre-cursors to line dancing. How hard could this newer dance form BE to someone with my experience, right? 

 

Wrong.

 

Ugh, I feel like such a goofball on the dancefloor. I really do. Just when I get the sequence down in my head, my feet won’t do what my brain says to do. That split-second of doubt makes all the difference. And, of course, I screw it up. ARGH! So far, I’ve been involved in anything from dancefloor fender-benders to complete and total car-crashes involving cursing, explosions, and flying body parts.

 

“So if you are having such a horrible time,” you probably ask from your psychiatrist seat, “why are you doing this to yourself?”

 

“Because!” I respond emphatically. “I’m not gonna let this beat me!” 

 

My inner sociologist (or “social voyeur” as my dearly-departed friend, Dr. Sylvia used to say), is fascinated by this popular form of entertainment. Frequently, I see lots of people, old and young, urban and rural, who all join together in one hardwood floor arena to share a common-experience. And, for the most part, this cross-section of humanity shares one commonality – an understanding of the dance steps and structure. This may not seem like a big deal at all to most, but to me it is absolutely fascinating. Different people. Different lives. Different interests. Different ages. Different backgrounds. Different experiences. Yet, for a brief moment, they are able to share a common experience. Two people who may have never met before, and may have absolutely nothing else in common may end up side-by-side, mirroring each other in a tribute to grace, eloquence, manner, air, and fun. For that 2-3 minutes, everyone sets aside their differences to allow a bit of commonly-shared amusement. And what’s more – they get it! They understand the sequence. The flow just happens, seemingly without thinking about it. 

 

I know that with time and repetition, I’ll get it. But my inner-perfectionist is still unhappy. What I WANT is to be able to just hook myself into the borg cube right now, this instant, so that I will have the steps and sequences down perfectly. But for now, I check my cheat-sheets on the 3 or 4 dances that I am semi-comfortable with, and run over them again and again in my head. 

 

Moi? Obsess much? Say it ain’t so!

 

If nothing else, I can take solace in the fact that I can somewhat fake my way through a couple of dances. And as I glance at one of the side-mirrors, I am also reminded of one little point that gives me joy - I look pretty damned cute in boots, cowboy hat, and tight jeans. 

 

“Howdy pard’ner.” I think to myself. “How YOU doin’?!”