DPchallenge « Behind the Willows

I wish I were the kind of person that had a morning room. You know, how you see in old movies where husband and wife are enjoying their morning pot of tea and reading the paper when the nanny brings in the fed, cleaned and dressed kids.

One of those morning rooms.

One of those morning rooms where I could sit and drink my tea and wake up before the demands of life hit me.
One of those morning rooms that’s cheerful and sunny – maybe it would improve my general personality at that time of day.
One of those morning rooms that is very, very quiet because of the conspicuous lack of children -they’ll be with the nanny.
One of those morning rooms that I could sit with my husband and talk before the day started so we’d start the day together with a plan.

Yeah – one of those morning rooms.

I’ll even be reasonable. I’ll pass on the rest of the implied life style that would go with such a room (it sounds boring) and I’ll send the nanny on her way by nine (I like to spend time with my kid the other hours of the day). I just oh so very much wish that my mornings were lacking in pee, blood, crying, running late, yelling, cajoling, lost shoes, cold vehicles, puking dogs and general chaos (and that was just this week).

While I suppose the proper thing to do would be to wish I were a kind, gentle, patient, happy morning person, at this point I find it more likely that I’ll win the lottery (which I don’t play) and am able to spend egregious amounts of money on the first two hours of my day than that I suddenly develop an appreciation for life before eight am.

For more” I wish I were…” posts check out Weekly Writing Challenge: I Wish I Were where you can read many other posts that were actually posted during the week of the challenge. The photos I took as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette and also failed to posted on time. I get to see the sun rise behind my neighbors cows every morning, I should probably appreciate the picturesque beauty of it more often instead of internally cursing the fact that I am up early enough to see the sun rise!

Even down here, from under this nice comfy rock where I reside, I can tell the election is coming. If I were to manage to forget the date, miss the yard signs and keep the radio off the phone calls alone would remind me. These are no ordinary political calls either.In fact I haven’t received a single call telling me who I should vote for and why. Nope, so far all I’ve answered are survey questions. Survey questions, which I must admit, I’m pathetically happy to answer.

You see it’s like this…

Here I am home alone with three kids. We’ve almost made it through another day. Which means that I’ve answered approximately 5,00,000,003 questions. 3,000,000,000 of my answers were considered wrong by the children and resulted in lengthy repetitive “discussions” (read how many different ways can you say, “No more apple cider!”). 2,000,000,000 of my answers were never heard by the kids because they had already moved on to other things and the last three of my answers were considered satisfactory and were allowed to stand. I’m on the brink of answering question 5,000,000,004 thinking the odds are poor that it will have a good outcome when the magic moment happens – the phone rings. A ringing phone can only mean one thing – ADULT CONVERSATION! I jump up shedding kids, dogs and dinner paraphernalia like a duck sheds water, dash to the phone and try to say hello as if I’m not grasping at a life line.

My excitement over the ringing phone had started to wane when I realized that three quarters of all my phone calls were people asking me what I think. But then I realized something. Three quarters of my phone calls are adults asking me what I think! I answer, and no one argues, screams, cries or stomps the ground. Sometimes they say things like “Really?!” which strikes me as odd and my science background is then suspicious of their results. Sometimes I mess with them to see if I can get them to leave their script – also not good scientific survey etiquette. Sometimes they provide “information” and then ask their questions again which makes the biologist in me shudder in horror. Most of the time I just cheerfully answer their questions using their awkward phrase of choice.

After the most recent barrage of survey questions I hung up the phone and realized something quite depressing.The political season’s version of telemarketers has become my new entertainment. Standing in the kitchen already besieged by more unanswerable questions from my own personal Lollipop Guild I immediately made myself a promise that I strongly agreed with…

I must crawl out from under my rock for a social event more often than my once a week library visit and I will never believe the results of the phone polls!

I wrote this for the Daily Post’s writing challenge of the week (of Oct. 1st) and am going with the better late than never theory. To see other responses to the challenge check out: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/weekly-writing-challenge-metaphor-and-similie/