Image by NVS_Inc via Flickr
One of the things about having a few days off is the chance to do things I wouldn’t do otherwise, like watch mindless television programs.
On the ET-Insider last night, I caught the “11 of 2011” awards and consider myself much better informed now. Among the great minds getting a nod for their contributions to mankind in the past year were Snooki and some of the Kardashians.
Really.
With a lineup like that, I figured, I must surely be in the running for a televised pat on the back this year. And although I waited expectantly in my new Christmas-themed flannel PJs, there was no knock on the door.
I’m hard-pressed to understand why. I mean, consider these heroic deeds of 2011:
- More than 250 PBJ sandwiches lovingly slapped together, crusts not included.
- 250+ loads of laundry sorted, washed, dried, folded and — sometimes — put away.
- 365 nutritious meals cooked, served and cleaned up.
- Ignored smart-ass comments of other diners eating many of those 365 nutritious meals.
- 52 trips to the grocery store, plus at least 30 more quick visits to pick up things no one bothered to put on the list.
- Who knows how many trips to Target, CVS, Walgreens, Staples etc., for a whole host of sundries.
- At least 150 toilet-scrubbing efforts.
- 34 hours of vaccuming.
- Equal amount of time spent scrubbing floors.
- Countless circuits through the house wielding Pledge and Windex.
- Endless hours driving teenage daughter to various activities.
- At least 10 hours spent warming benches at youth volleyball games.
It’s a formidable list and I haven’t touched on my work life, or Jazzercise vocation, my efforts at entertaining or many other tasks I undertake every day.
Clearly, my contributions to mankind rank up there with anything Snooki or the Kardashians are doing these days.
ET-Insider: I don’t need a fancy plaque — really, it’d just be one more thing to dust. But I’d be delighted to appear on camera to accept your kudos.
Call me.
Pushing on a Rope 
I remember a joke from, I think, Reader’s Digest many years ago. A husband came home one way to find the house in chaos. Clothing was flung on furniture and railings, dishes piled in the sink and on the counters, dirty pots sat on the stove, no dinner was cooking, the floors were a mess. He asked his wife, “what happened?”
She looked at him and said, “you always wonder what I do with myself all day. Well, today I didn’t do it.”
No one ever notices what we do, but don’t do it, and it gets noticed. Bill decides it’s bedtime, brushes his teeth, and gets in bed. Meanwhile, I put the papers in the recycling bin, put dishes and glasses in the dishwasher — including the ones that he put in the sink — check to see there’s butter in the butter dish, bread out for breakfast, lights out, then head to bed.
You’d get a plaque from me! A flat, non-glass-covered one.
Posted by Karen Waggoner | December 27, 2011, 6:21 pm