How do you spell anal retentive?
Do you ever get caught up in a task that is seemingly trivial, mindlessly repetitive and yet find it oddly satisfying? I have spent a considerable amount of time untangling yarn to wind into balls. I know that sounds like the most boring thing to do, but once I get started it's hard to stop.
The same thing happened a few weeks ago when the baby had a bad case of cradle cap. That's basically just a layer of dry skin on the top of the scalp that every baby gets, kind of like severe dandruff. It's not at all harmful, but it's kind of gross. To get rid of it, you rub oil on the scalp, then shampoo it, then scrape off the dead skin with your fingernails and comb it out. The day I tried this, I became obsessed with getting every damn chunk of dry skin off of little Daniel's scalp. He hated it (wouldn't you get a little pissy if someone was constantly scratching your scalp and picking out the dandruff?), but I couldn't help it. I would wait until he was nursing, or taking a nap, and sneak up on him with my claw-fingers and a fine-tooth comb. It took a couple days of this, but I finally got it all.
Last Thanksgiving Stuart and I discovered that our wheeled office chairs were no longer rolling across the floor, just sliding. Why weren't the wheels turning? Upon close inspection we discovered the culprit: lots of hair had been caught up in the castors, preventing them from turning or rotating. We couldn't just leave them that way. So we set ourselves on the couch, turned those office chairs upside-down and began digging out all that hair and dust. We used scissors, pocket knives, even an ice pick and several pairs of pliars. Some of that hair was really stubborn. Does it sound disgusting? It was totally disgusting! Yet we couldn't stop until the task was done. Never mind that a pie needed baking and potatoes needed mashing. These office chairs were going to be hair-free come hell or high water. About two hours and many creative tools later, we finally finished. Oh, the satisfaction! The feeling of accomplishment!
Enough of this craziness. I have yarn to untangle and a sock drawer to organize.
The same thing happened a few weeks ago when the baby had a bad case of cradle cap. That's basically just a layer of dry skin on the top of the scalp that every baby gets, kind of like severe dandruff. It's not at all harmful, but it's kind of gross. To get rid of it, you rub oil on the scalp, then shampoo it, then scrape off the dead skin with your fingernails and comb it out. The day I tried this, I became obsessed with getting every damn chunk of dry skin off of little Daniel's scalp. He hated it (wouldn't you get a little pissy if someone was constantly scratching your scalp and picking out the dandruff?), but I couldn't help it. I would wait until he was nursing, or taking a nap, and sneak up on him with my claw-fingers and a fine-tooth comb. It took a couple days of this, but I finally got it all.
Last Thanksgiving Stuart and I discovered that our wheeled office chairs were no longer rolling across the floor, just sliding. Why weren't the wheels turning? Upon close inspection we discovered the culprit: lots of hair had been caught up in the castors, preventing them from turning or rotating. We couldn't just leave them that way. So we set ourselves on the couch, turned those office chairs upside-down and began digging out all that hair and dust. We used scissors, pocket knives, even an ice pick and several pairs of pliars. Some of that hair was really stubborn. Does it sound disgusting? It was totally disgusting! Yet we couldn't stop until the task was done. Never mind that a pie needed baking and potatoes needed mashing. These office chairs were going to be hair-free come hell or high water. About two hours and many creative tools later, we finally finished. Oh, the satisfaction! The feeling of accomplishment!
Enough of this craziness. I have yarn to untangle and a sock drawer to organize.
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