The sassy, too tall for short hair girl raised her hand and waved it vigorously. I was hesitant to call on her because from past experience I knew she could flog the dead horse better than anyone I'd ever met.
"Timmy, what did you get out of that lesson?"
Timmy looked up at me with his sleepy eyes and said "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say nothing at all?"
Timmy, I knew, was not the brightest bulb in the box and I slowly shook my head, "Timmy, that is from the movie Bambi. Our lesson today was not from a movie, it was about a girl who had too many expectations to fill in such a short 3 day time span."
Suzie made a verbal..."Oh oh oh...I know!" Her hand shot into the air like a rocket from a bottle.
"Yes Suzie, please tell us what you learned from this lesson" I said.
"Some times we make plans for something to happen and then if we expect too much to happen during this certain time period and if it doesn't go the way we planned you can get really mad. That happens with my dad a lot!" Suzie put her hand back down on the desk and smiled like the know-it-all that she was.
"Well, that was one of the lessons we learned about. Thank you Suzie. What else did we learn from this lesson?" The sassy one was still waving her hand....here we go, I thought to myself. "Okay, Cherie, what small bid of wisdom did you glean from this lesson?"
She lowered her hand and sat up straight. I knew we were in for it... 15 minutes, non-stop, lesson after lesson while flogging the dead horse.
"I learned that you can plan on a simple 14 steps to get a room done in 3 days and instead of making that happen, 2 stupid windows will eat into your plans and put the entire plan into a tail spin and you will cry and cry and get mad at the windows and the windows will knock you down and spit on you! After the windows spit on you, they will kick you and then they will smack you and then they will punch you in the gut!
When all you thought you were going to do was paint them, you realize that two of them are broken, well one was cracked and one had been shot with a bb gun. (I hope it was a bb gun) and then your husband will tell you that you can't just paint them you have to replace them and fix the windows and re-glaze them and get all that terrible paint dripping stuff off of them and tighten them up so they don't let out all the heat and then, once you get them open it will take 4 hours to get them off of the ropes that hold them up and some will be broken and some won't and you have to make sure that you don't let the weight that holds them up fall into the great abyss and then they look at you and laugh at you knowing full well that they are wrecking your timeline and then you start crying and get mad and feeling like this is never going to work and that you'll never finish this job and what were you thinking and why is this your "dream house" when every job has been a nightmare and then... just when you think you'll never get past this, you tug on one little screw and the side rail comes out and the window sighs and you gently grab it and shake it and spit on it and giggle."
"And then you get out the broken windows and you go buy new glass and re-glaze them and sand them and paint them and then you say to them "I'd kick you but then I'd have to go buy new glass so I'm going to let you off the hook just this time and I'M MOVING ON!!!" And then you get back on track and even though it's been 3 whole days, you get to paint the walls in this room and then when it's really late, you sit in the window sill and look at the room and you start to feel like this is finally, really, seriously going to happen. The walls look pretty. I mean really pretty and you start to feel like OMG, every room in this old house will eventually turn pretty and you say to yourself and to the house that you call Martha..."I think you're so pretty and you are my dream house and I LOVE this color even though I was getting worried at first that it looked like blue cotton candy...and I just know this is going to be the best thing ever. Just like the book, Huckle and Lowly and the Best Surprise Ever."
And then you have to leave because it's super late and you are exhausted and when you get home and crawl into your bed, you are smiling because over at that other house... a room has been painted and looks so pretty and that's when you figure out that time lines are for chumps!!!"
Dead horse, lying on the ground...still dead. Cherie still kicking it, then flogging it then growling at it...and now she's smiling.
What a wonderful lesson.
Peace
C
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