Botheration

One's state of being in the world can reliably be measured by the degree of bother one is prepared to undertake. A carrier bag has been stationed in my little hall since Christmas. It contains gifts which are not straightforwardly dealt with; socks that don't fit so need changing, a Kindle of which I couldn't tell the back from the front and various beauty products that I doubt will affect my beauty in the least. Now, why is this bag still there, frozen, untouched? Simply because I havent had the bother factor to deal with it. To some extent it has become wall-paper. I don't actually see it any more. However, I am in danger of hugging this 'can't be bothered' syndrome so close to my chest that the house will soon be covered in un-dealt-with carrier bags. Today, I have invited a friend to supper. It needs telling because I have not entertained anyone at home since the enforced summer break in hospital last year.  On a few occasions I have used a local eatery to take over my hospitality obligations: an expensive solution. Today is different and I have already prepared the basics of home-made eating. But, Dear Reader, it has been so long since I had my hands in a mixing bowl that I have forgotten where everything is. It is not a laughing matter. I spent ten minutes looking for the rice - kedgeree if you really want to know - and had to sit down and review things and ask myself where I would, most likely, have stored rice when I was a fully functioning feeder of friends. I did find it, among the few tins I keep routinely. It had no business to be there. Taking it down I felt a sticky resistance. Something had been spilt and not cleaned up. Not only had I wasted time looking for the rice I was then confronted with an essential use of time, to wipe the cupboard clean This is where the botheration factor really kicks in. Someone who is making a meal out of making a meal is not in a fit state to clean cupboards. Solution: sleep in an unmade bed and ask my cleaning helper to do the cupboard.

  Assiduous followers of 75 going on 40 may remember that I bought two cars, one after the other, the starting mechanism of neither was I able to manage. Picture the hassle/botheration factor in that situation, not to speak of the monetary bother involved in changing the starting mechanism. In my sober after-state, I can see that, having easily started the twin of the car I purchased and not test-driven the identical other, it was clearly a fault in mine and should have been rectified by the dealer. Probably the most expensive outcome of can't-be-bothered I have indulged in in recent times. I have to say that I have seen myself as having a rather large tank of bother in my past lives: several children, house work, professional work and the Company Wife thing. Now I am stuck with sticky cupboards full of stuff with use-by dates in 2011. When I die successfully, having flunked it last summer,  my young will have to hire several skips to deal with the rubbish lurking behind every storage door before they even ring the undertaker. (In case they are called something else over the Pond, a skip is a big iron -? - container used by builders for stuff they have torn out for which they have no further use. Oh, and an undertaker is, I believe, a mortician). I put this to a nephew  who happened to telephone during this reflection. He responded that if they hired several skips they may not need the undertaker. Quite. Bore da