TASK #19

May 17th--23d

THE MOMMY EFFECT

"A single sentence will suffice for the modern man: he fornicated and he read the newspapers".   Albert Camus

We decided to order in some pizza the other night. A big treat--we try to do it once a week just to have a break from our normal pandemic fare: hamburgers, meatloaf and pasta. The wife and I talked about it, then I went outside to sip a beer and stare into the sky. After about an hour I went in and asked "did the pizza get here?" My wife looked at me and said, "I didn't order it." I asked, "why not?" And she said, "why do I always have to order the food?"  And I stammered and complained and finally she picked up the phone and called Poppa Johns.

I thought about the exchange. My wife does shoulder a LOT of the mundane tasks--probably more than a lot--probably ALL of the mundane tasks. 

I had to ask myself, "why?"

When I was growing up my mother did everything for me. She cooked, made my bed, cleaned up after me, did my laundry, made all the difficult phone calls, made sure I was where I was supposed to be. I was "wombed" big time.

Needless to say I was unprepared for college, let alone life after college. So what kind of girlfriends do you think I pursued? Ones that were like my mother of course. They took care of everything for me!

It was a mistake. I was a big baby: nurtured and incubated.

It was a weakness, and it only got exacerbated when I got older and starting liking women who didn't want men that they had to take care of...

So I had to teach myself to be self-sufficient. I chose five tasks--five tasks that I had NEVER done before--and I taught myself how to do them.

The five tasks I chose for myself: 1) baking cupcakes; 2) sewing up a patch on a rip on my jeans; 3) planting tomatoes; 4) pre-soaking some clothes; 5) going to the CVS for shampoo.

Seems pretty mundane, but I'd never done any of them before. Then I branched out. I mopped the kitchen and called the gas company and yes, ordered a pizza.


TASK:

Look at the things that other people do for you. Write them down. Pick 5 and do them yourself. Take you time and finish each one.

Let me know what you did this week. JoeDoebula@gmail.com