If

Have you ever noticed how some people just can't sit still? Not ever. Not even after a long and difficult day at a regular job. They return from work and immediately start finding things to do around the house/apartment. They can't sit still. Not even when sitting still is exactly the correct thing to do.

Spouse is like that. After thirty years of marriage we have NEVER sat down and watched a movie, or even a television, show straight through. There is always something that needs to be putzed with. (Putz is my word for activities which don't need to be done and don't really serve much of a purpose at the time.) The result of this is that Spouse never knows what's going on in a movie or television show. And during those rare moments when Spouse returns to watch there is a constant barrage of questions about what's going on which would have easily been answered had Spouse just relaxed and sat still to watch.

After thirty years I'm at the point where if it doesn't interfere with my relaxing I don't really care. It drives Son nuts. He's entering the stage of annoyed replies to questions about the show. Or sullen silence. Teenagers have their own ways of communicating dissatisfaction.

I suppose people like me drive the active people insane, making them think I must be out of my mind (or a completely lazy slob) for being able to sit down and not move from my place for extended periods of time - such as fifteen minutes or more.

Remember Rudyard Kipling's, "If" poem? There have been a variety of comic takes on it over the years. My favorite came from the Flintstones, the stone age cartoon created by Hanna-Barbara back in the 1960s. Fred was going to umpire little league. In the rule book he reads the If poem - as it related to umpiring. It concluded with, "If you can do all of this then, and only then, are you read to be an umpire. You bum."

Whenever I'm around people being active and I'm being calm, I find myself thinking of the If poem and wonder if they're thinking something along this line.

If you can remain calm when this entire mess is your fault,
If you can sit there calmly while there is a floor that could be vacuumed,
or a bed that could be made,
If you can type on that keyboard when there are things that could be rearranged,
furniture that could be moved,
Then just what in the h*ll is the matter with you? Get off your a*s and do something! Anything. Just quit sitting there like that. You're driving me nuts!

Ceste la vie. Right?