Hurdles

I went to a very, very small school from third grade through graduation.

One of the advantages was that, if you were at all athletically inclined (or if your parents at all wanted you to be), you could definitely play any sport you wanted to. Even if you really weren’t that good at it. At all. Which is how I ended up on the track team at the end of my junior year.

There were about ten of us on the team, and all of us were forced (sorry, encouraged) to compete in multiple events. We would give up our afternoons to train during the week, then give up Saturdays to go a track meet with all the other sad track kids from the other smalls schools in our area.

Needless to say, I was less than thrilled about it.

First of all, I was not much of a runner. I am not built to run - I have thick legs and wide, child-bearing hips. Also, I didn’t like to sweat much and definitely did not give 110% during practice. I was averaging 40-73%, on a good day. It wasn’t completely my fault: I had broken my ankle during junior high, and, since I neglected to complete my physical therapy, running for more than about ten minutes caused an extravagantly painful stabbing sensation that originated in my ankle and travelled the length of my leg. The only track event I competed in with any degree of skill was carbo-loading on Friday nights.

Nevertheless, for some bizarre reason, my track coach looked at my stumpy little body and bum ankle and thought “hurdler.” I suspect now that he was just as out of his depth as the rest of us were.

I sucked at the hurdles. I could at least make it through the shortest hurdle distance, but not quickly, and not without leaving a trail of downed hurdles behind me. The longer hurdle distance was completely beyond me, and I would frequently end up walking the last bit of it, halfheartedly stepping over the hurdles and trying to ignore the screams of my coach. I also fell down a lot.

Unfortunately, I was still good enough in our little bush league to make it all the way to the semi-finals before the State meet. I was completely fed up with track, and dreaded qualifying for State. I was in luck, however. Another hurdler had joined our team a few weeks before, and she was actually good. She was long, lean, and flowed over the hurdles like a gazelle on crack. I felt confident that she would blow past me and knock me out of the running.

So, I wasn’t too worried as we lined up for our race. I was in the lane closest to the stands. The Gazelle was in the next lane, and there were four other runners in the race. I exploded (read: stumbled) out of my traces at the crack of the gun. The Gazelle was already three strides ahead of me and leaping effortlessly over her first hurdle. I cleared my first hurdle, counted the paces to my second, and made it over that one as well. As I pushed off to jump the third, I heard a horrible noise from the lane next to me. The Gazelle had somehow gotten her feet tangled around her fourth hurdle and gone down, also managing to take out the hurdler next to her, who skidded into the next lane and tripped up a third runner. Of the other two racers, one girl was even worse than me and was well behind the pack. The other was far better than the rest of us, had already finished the race, and was now sipping Gatorade and chatting with her coach, probably laughing at the rest of us.

As I hustled past the struggling, bleeding form of the Gazelle, it occurred to me, Hey, I might get second. Then I would go to State. I felt my legs get a little wobbly. If I made it to State, that was another three weeks of training. Another three weeks of spending every afternoon at the public high school track, missing important social events and TV shows. Another three weeks of wearing our incredibly unattractive and itchy school-supplied track shorts, which made my legs look like bloated white sausages. I could hear the Gazelle behind me, breathing hard, trying to catch up. I’m going to beat her! I thought, horrified. The finish line loomed large and threatening, too close.

So I slowed down. In defiance of everything ever taught to me by my parents or my coaches about organized sports, I let the Gazelle get past me. After I felt she was safely ahead of me, I resumed my racing speed and came across the finish line in acceptable third place. The other two girls that had fallen were still on the ground, tending to their wounds.

As our parents came out of the stands to congratulate us and hand us our sweatshirts, I felt my dad’s eyes upon me. I turned and looked into his face. He knows! I thought. My heart sank. My dad has always been a staunch advocate of doing your best, even if you hate whatever it is you are doing. I knew I had failed and would probably get a thoroughly scathing lecture on the drive home about responsibility and integrity.

But, he merely handed me my sweatshirt, smiled, and said, “You probably shouldn’t go out for track next year. You’re really pretty awful.”

Cockroaches

I hate cockroaches.

I hate cockroaches with a fervent, undying hatred usually reserved for infomercials and people who cut me off in traffic.

I hate everything about them – their shiny, smooth backs, wavy antennae, barbed little legs, and ability to appear out of nowhere when I least expect it, like a tiny, evil, insect Batman.

I can’t even kill them without going through an elaborate “icky dance,” which involves a lot of high-pitched shrieking, shuddering, and spastic waving of hands. I have been known to “quarantine” a cockroach and wait for my husband and/or one of the cats to take care of it rather than trying to smoosh it myself.

I haaaaaaaate them.

I went to college in South Carolina, where they have the mother of all cockroaches, the palmetto bug. These are not like the tame Texas roaches I encountered growing up that scuttle away as soon as a light hits them. No, these are humongous, aggressive, flying cockroaches that are unfazed by flipping on the lights and/or hysterical screaming. They are also virtually indestructible. I once saw one survive multiple direct hits with a Doc Martin, a dousing with Raid, and a trip down the toilet.

My sophomore dorm was infested with these unsavory creatures.

So, one night when I had the room to myself, I was taking a relaxing hot shower after hitting the gym. I was washing my hair, not really thinking about anything, just peaceably enjoying my shower, when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned slowly, hands still in my sudsy hair. There, sitting daintily astride the shower curtain rod, was a palmetto bug the size of a kitten.

I froze. My heart lurched in alarm. The bug rearranged itself slowly, carefully lifting and placing one leg at a time. Adrenaline surged through my system. I developed tunnel vision, laser-focusing on the rotating bug. It stopped turning when it was looking directly at me. We studied each other for enough time for several species to evolve and go extinct. I read malevolent purpose in its beady little eyes. Then, IT FLEW DIRECTLY AT MY FACE.

I totally lost it. I started screaming incoherently, ripping down the shower curtain in my haste to get out of the bathroom. I charged into my room, shuddering and flapping my hands, yelling “KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!”

And that’s when I noticed that my roommate had come home and that she had her boyfriend over. Moreover, I had neglected to grab my robe in my speedy exit from the bathroom. I hesitated, my fear of cockroaches vying for supremacy with my fear of being naked in front of others. I compromised by diving into the closet.

My roommate’s boyfriend, being a gentleman, was kind enough to hunt down the roach in the bathroom, kill it, and retrieve my robe, albeit while laughing hysterically.

And that’s how my roommate’s boyfriend saw me naked.

Responsibility

I’ve declared this next year as “The Year I Finally Grow Up and Start Acting Like a Responsible Adult.”

It started after I quit my awful job and suddenly had lots of free time while I looked for other employment. I was tooling around the house one day, eating Cheetos straight out of the bag and playing Oblivion, while waiting to hear something from the thirty companies I’d contacted earlier in the week. I hadn’t bothered to shower or get dressed, and was covered in a combination of cat hair, Cheeto dust, and sleep sweat. The house was an absolute wreck – I hadn’t vacuumed in months, all of our dishes were dirty and complexly stacked in our sink, and there was something growing out of our toilet that had me seriously considering digging a privy pit in the backyard rather than facing it again.

I got up to go rummage in the pantry after I’d finished off the Cheetos. On my way to the pantry, I passed a pile of dry cleaning that I’d picked up in a fit of responsibility rather more than two weeks ago. Why is that still there? I thought as I glared down at it. Why has nobody put that away?

And then it struck me. This is MY house. Nobody is following me around and picking up after me (my husband being off the hook as he has an actual job). This was so revolutionary to me that I immediately called my mother:

“Mom! I get it! Nobody’s picking up after me anymore!”

“Sweetie, I feel like I failed a little bit as a mother if you just realized this today. We worked on that for fifteen years while you lived at home.”

“But I GET it now!”

“How are those job applications coming?”

Spurred my new understanding of how the domestic world works, I immediately tackled the dishes in the sink. After that, I dragged the vacuum out. It nearly gave two of my cats heart attacks, as, though we adopted them months ago, they had not been with us long enough to have witnessed a vacuuming. Finally, armed with a scrub brush and a homemade hazmat suit, I attacked both bathrooms. It was a vicious battle, but I emerged victorious and without contracting cholera.

When I was done, I was filthy, tired, and sneezing uncontrollably from all the dust I kicked up, but the house sparkled. I then turned my attention to myself. I showered, taking the time to both wash my hair and shave my legs. After my shower, I plucked my eyebrows and put on makeup. Full makeup. Even though I wasn’t going anywhere. Then, instead of my fleece penguin pajama pants, I opted for jeans and a tasteful t-shirt.

I emerged from my bedroom. I felt my animals looking up to me with a newfound respect. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing adult things like menu planning, paying bills, and organizing closets. I imagined my husband coming home, gasping in shock, and immediately sweeping me off my feet to either a romantic dinner or an evening of shoe shopping, all while weeping tears of gratitude that we no longer had to live in our own filth and that his wife actually owns real pants.

And then a week later, we were back to square one. Wait, I thought, the full horror of the situation slowly dawning on me, I have to keep doing this? Every single week? Every single day?

It turns out that being a responsible adult is not something that can be accomplished in one cleaning and personal hygiene session, however epic. But, I will not lay down my burden, as I am entirely too old to go back to living like a freshman dude in his first apartment. I am determined to conquer domesticity and dressing like an adult.

Just as soon as I finish these Cheetos and hit level 10.