Working like a Rented Mule

It’s not that it has been an especially bad week.  Yesterday felt fine.  Today I got up and knew that it was all over.  Someone dumped the bag of white feathers marked ‘extra-large’ in front of the cathedral steps while I was standing there like an anime girl beholding the ultimate in ridiculous tragedy.  If you have no idea what I mean – I dare you – please read on.

No one died.  An extremely handsome man with a sculpted abdomen did not take a bullet in front of me.  Nor did my most important person get plastered by the front of a foreign car right before our reconciliation.  I did not lose my job and I was not forced to sell breadcrumbs and thankfully, I wasn’t even attacked by birds.  As I have ruled out the most terrible things, you must assume that my trouble is relatively trivial.  I’m a woman, so sometimes the thing that strikes my heartstring with anguish is fairly trivial.  Yet, that single tear is racing down my cheek like I just saw a horrific accident, when actually … I just can’t work the spray nozzle for my pesticide. 

This past month I have been working myself like a rented mule in order to prepare for the summer holidays.   This morning when I got up and went to yoga, I couldn’t even muster the spunk to do a three-legged dog and ended up loafing in child’s pose instead.  So, there I was with my forehead against my mat trying to figure out why I was flipping out.  Well, it wasn’t exactly brain surgery.  I am worn out. 

So, what’s this about pesticide you say?  It’s one of the things on my ‘to do’ list.  And I hate pesticide … intensely, passionately … enough to make that little vein in my forehead stick out (another perk for staying in child’s pose).  Anywhoo – my ‘to do’ list hasn’t been getting smaller.  Every day, it’s just as long and just as tiring as it was the day before.  It’s like watching an extendo Asian drama in the tragedy genre.  Just when you think the heroine can’t suffer any more, her mother-in-law walks in and before you can snap your fingers, our heroine is in the mountains on her hands and knees looking the ginseng.  And she probably has a smear of mud on her cheek and a cut on the palm of her hand, just to make you feel extra sorry for her.

Can I really compare to that?  I can when I’m wearing a hat, facemask, gloves, long-sleeves, heavy boots, it’s a million degrees, and I’m accidentally spraying myself with toxic chemicals because I’m too stupid to figure out what’s wrong with my pressure sprayer. 

I’m just saying ….