As pack rats go, I’m pretty good. I’ve moved enough to unload unused or unwanted items and generally, I try to move stuff on while it still has a useful life for someone else. Well, unless there is an emotional attachment, or a memento from a trip, or fabric I like, or photos … really, I’m not that bad. Okay, I didn’t think I was until I discovered a box not long ago filled with old school papers, including every report card and transcript from first grade through college. I know, I didn’t apply myself enough, I was a little too social and talked too much, and I didn’t turn my assignments in on time. So my personality was pretty well developed by the time I was six. That’s a bit scary.
But among the junk was a paper I wrote in high school; let me mention, it was early high school when eyeliner and hemlines ruled my stream of consciousness. It was what I expected my life to look like as I got older. I’m not going to share everything, but the words husband, quarterback, handsome, rich and tall were mentioned somewhere in this brilliantly deep essay. If pressed, I’m sure I would have been willing to settle for doctor or lawyer as well.
Then I got a car and once I started teaching and my folks cut me loose financially, I realized the quarterback thing probably wasn’t going to happen, and I began to shift gears and think about the advantages of an auto mechanic in my life. Hey, it was an old Ford Maverick, and I was at the station every month for something or another. But a mechanic eluded me as well.
As I got older, I went through my plumber, electrician and carpenter phases. Just some body with some useful skills. You see, my dad was an educator who barely knew which end of a screwdriver to use. His father was no better, nor was my mother’s family. Fortunately, my brother broke the trend and I remember the Thanksgiving he talked me through how to dislodge about 10 pounds of carrot peels by taking the plumbing apart underneath my kitchen sink, as he was in California and I was in Michigan.
Over the years, I’ve been pretty adept at replacing the plugs at the end of cords and other minor electrical challenges, repairing numerous plumbing issues and I learned my way around various drills while I mounted shelves in closets, and hung drapery rods – not simple little curtain rods with two screw brackets, but the old fashioned traverse drapery rods. So frankly, I’ve figured out how to get along without a plumber, electrician or carpenter by either doing it myself or, who am I kidding, just paying for it.
But if I were 14 and could write that paper over again, this is how it would start: I want a soul mate who is captain of the technology geek/ nerd squad. I want someone who will just make my technology decisions, set me up and come running at the first sign of distress which happens pretty darn fast for me. I love technology when it works, but when it doesn’t, it is an incredibly short drive to Frustration Road for me. And while they’re at it, they can set up Netflix and help me connect my computer to the TV unless it’s all the same move. And then they can actually work past the cable issues so I can really have a DVR as in recorder, and not just a DVD player which I could unload in a heartbeat. Oh, the list goes on, but you get my point.
I’ve just gone through the purchase of a new laptop and if it weren’t for the fine men at Vertex Computers in Lansing, I would have never gotten it out of the box. It’s funny how our desires change over the years. Some call it maturity; me – I call it reality. I still don’t apply myself enough, I still talk too much and I still don’t finish my work on time. But you can be sure, if I was 14 now, I’d let go of the tall, rich and handsome, and I’d be looking for a high tech geek prospect who could really make my life better. What could be better than that in 2015?
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Our younger daughter married your dream spouse! Sue M.