By: Samantha S. Daviss
When you are young, like really young in your teens and 20s,
you pretty much think everyone and everything is “lame”. You think your parents
are lame for doing yard work, you think your teachers are lame for making you
write a paper, you think your friends are lame when they don’t want to spend
time with you.
But typically, people that think others are lame just aren’t
comfortable doing what they are doing at the moment. You are trying to build
yourself and your ego up, so you feel cooler or more awesome than everyone else
in the world. When in reality, we all have a little bit of “lameness” in us.
My life motto is to let your “Dork flag fly if you have
one”. There are things I do in life that make me a total dork, and I’m okay
with that label. I love to clean out my fridge, it makes me happy; I love to
write, it releases a little voice in my head that needs to be released; and I
love to sweep out my garage. I don’t do it often enough, but man when my garage
floor is clean, I love it!
However, right now, my 22 year-old-self is crawling in a
hole about to die from “lameness”. I’ve come to the reality though, that there
are just some things you do as a maturing adult that at one point in your life
would have made your younger self die, absolutely die, from embarrassment.
So with time, I guess comes, dorkiness…and I have compiled a
list of things that are super awesome as adults, but would have been lame when
we were younger, and two I have already named:
1)
To clean out my fridge
Living in a house of just boys
takes a lot of patience and understanding. But with boys comes messes, lots and
lots of messes. And the refrigerator has no pardon from their wrath. That poor
refrigerator door is probably opened at least fifty times a day. Sometimes
things are grabbed out of it, sometimes it just gets stared at…then suddenly I
hear the screech of “Mom, there’s nothing to eat!” Which is obvious from the
fully stocked fridge standing right in front of them.
But to no avail the fridge gets
filthy. It doesn’t take long. I don’t know how it gets so dirty, but it does.
And I love nothing more than to sit with my Lysol all-purpose cleaner and a
roll of Bounty paper towels and scrub that baby from top to bottom. Re-organizing
and putting everything back where it belongs. “Lameness” at its finest.
2)
To clean my garage
A busy household, filled with kids, jobs,
and running in a million directions doesn’t allow for a lot of down time to
tend to the little things around a house. And no matter how many times you ask
everyone to put things back where they found them, it is never done. So that is
where the messy garage comes into play. The toys are never put away, and leaves
and mud are constantly tracked through.
But it’s nothing that a nice sturdy push
broom and some organizing skills can’t fix.
3)
To have my travel essentials ready and filled
for a trip at a moment’s notice
My mother always told me to have my “travel
kit” ready to go. “When you get home from a trip, always refill everything you
ran out of.” I always thought it was a very odd rule (or suggestion), but now
it makes total sense. I don’t have to run around thinking what I need to pack,
what I would use every day, in addition to packing my clothes, the kids clothes
and any extra necessities I may have to remember. So knowing my travel kit is
ready to go at a moment’s notice, gives me such delight.
4)
Cleaning day
I have pampered myself with a cleaning
person. I keep my house up in between her visits, but I don’t need to get me
nails done, or my hair done, or tons of other pampering items. But my cleaning
lady is my God send, truly. I am so happy the day she comes. There is nothing
better than pulling in my garage from a long day at work and with the kids to
smell Pine Sol seeping through the cracks of my back door.
It is such a joy and relief to know that,
that one stress has been unloaded from my plate.
5)
Vacuuming my rugs
Yep the lines…the lines from a freshly
vacuumed rug or carpet get me every time. I love to just walk into the room and
see those symmetrical lines gliding across my floors. And as a younger me I
would never have noticed, but now it is a sense of accomplishment, and adult
lameness at its best.
6)
New car smell
I’m that person…I love new cars, and
congratulations to those who get them. But when I admire your new car I really
don’t notice the leather seats, or all the buttons to be pushed, or even the
manufacturer’s name on the outside…it’s the smell that I love. I could lock
myself in a new car for hours just admiring the clean floors, the clean seats,
and the new car smell.
That smell gives me hope, but in the same
breathe I know that hope is near the end. That new smell, the clean seats, and
clean floors will soon be things of the past.
7)
Sitting by a campfire, without having to get
drunk
Ahhh yes, the days of hanging out with
friends, building campfires by the lake shore or in pastures, and partaking in
some adult beverages. Those were the days. My younger self couldn’t even
imagine not having a beverage around a campfire. I would say to my older self
“What in the world is wrong with you? Let’s party.” But now campfires are
peaceful, enjoyable, and fun to watch my kids run around. Plus I have the added
bonus of doing an activity that doesn’t end in a hang-over, so double lame
bonus there.
8)
Go back to school and get another degree just
because
Who would want to go back to school just
because? This gal. I once started my graduate degree, and pretty soon I am
going to finish it…just because. How lame is that? It will help me learn more
about by career, it won’t necessarily benefit my career, but it will help give
me additional knowledge about it. And I want to finish it, just because. I know
total dork here…but it has always been a goal of mine, so why not?
9)
A full tank of gas
Who doesn’t love knowing you are riding
around with a full tank of gas? Instead of watching that red light flash at you
reminding you that you are either too busy or too lazy to fill up your tank. I
can’t tell you how many times I have had to drive to my son’s school to pick him
up wondering if I would make it back to town to throw about $5 worth of gas in
my tank. I am pretty sure I have more ulcers from my gas tank scares, than I do
from any other stresses in my life.
But then there is that feeling of knowing
for at least 385 miles I have nothing to worry about, and can go as far as I
want to go.
10)
Cupboards and my refrigerator full of food
Grocery shopping, ugghhh…it’s the worst. I
have to load up my basket, mark off my list, and then…PAY! But the worst part
is the unloading. Especially when you have the amount of groceries I have every
few weeks. It is a two to three hour ordeal.
But the joy and satisfaction I have when I am
finished and my pantry shelves are full again, my refrigerator is stocked
again, and my kids aren’t complaining anymore, is the best feeling in the
world.
As you can see the older we get, I guess the lamer we get.
It’s the little things in life that make us smile, that make us happy. So
remember, when you see those vacuum lines on your floor and you smile, it’s
okay to let your dork flag fly.
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