Oxymoron Diaries | Easy to Follow Directions.
Yeah, right.
I can remember years ago in my previous life the dryer broke down. This was way back. Way, way back. I was 22 years old, two little kids, our first house and we were broke, broke, broke. And like I said, the dryer broke down.
Did I mention that we didn't use disposable diapers? No? Well, we didn't use disposable diapers. For those of you out there scratching your head about that statement, that means that all those diapers were cloth and I had to wash and dry after use.
Yea, wash and dry after THAT use. So not having a working dryer was a bit of an issue with two little ones still in diapers.
In an effort to save money (did I mention we were broke, broke, broke?), instead of calling a repairman, we went to the part store and purchased a dryer belt to change and install ourselves.
Couldn't be all that hard, right?
Right. (By the way, I did not resemble that perfectly put together lady on the right. My hair probably hadn't been combed in 3 days and I'm sure I had on sweat pants. Dirty sweat pants, since the dryer was broken.)
Unfortunately my husband at the time, God love him, he tried for three straight days to get that damn dryer belt on, but to no avail. I was really starting to feel sorry for him. No, actually I was starting to feel sorry for myself, as those dirty diapers were piling up. If it had been summer I could've hung them outside on the clothesline, but to complicate things further, it was winter and my babies preferred their diapers not to have icicles hanging off of them. Although that nice warm baby pee would've melted those icicles in short order I'm sure.
Ewww. Too much information.
Anyway, about the third day, my husband trudges off to work and I decide that I am not giving up until I get that damn belt on and some diapers washed.
I pull out the directions and give them the once over. They seem simple enough, so I give it a whirl.
Five minutes later the belt is on the dryer, the dryer is pushed back against the wall and I've got load number one of dirty nappies agitating in the Clorox.
I am so proud of myself that I actually call my husband at work to say "Honey, don't worry. I fixed the dryer."
His response was a quick, "How did you manage that?"
I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm, but frankly didn't care because my diapers were ready for the drying phase and we were good to go. My reply to his question was an excited, "It wasn't all that hard. I just followed the directions."
Slight pause. No, a lengthy pause and then his response. "What directions?"
It should have dawned on me when the directions were still folded up in the bag that perhaps they were never actually used. Silly me. I was young and naive.
In all fairness, I am not, in any way picking on husband #1, since husband #2 would have been the exact same story except for the dirty cloth diapers part.
It's just a guy thing.
Another version of Easy to Follow Directions is the opposite of the above scenario.
We have two great big Goldendoodles who like to drag my butt down the street. So we buy these "gentle leader" collars that are supposed to prevent them from dragging my butt down the street anymore. The problem is these things are not intuitive at all. That's why they come with both paper directions AND a DVD! Plus the clerk at the pet store even showed us what to do. That should have been our first clue to hang those packages back up on the display rack.
You see where I'm gong with this? Right.
Even though we have multiple resources and have watched the DVD forward, backwards, and repeatedly, those collars are still not on the dogs.
So, NOT easy to follow directions.
Hence, I am dubbing that phrase an oxymoron.
If you liked the post above, perhaps you'll also like a work of fiction titled
The Oxymoron Diaries ...
About The Oxymoron Diaries ...
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Abigail
Nutter has walked a fine line between the apathetic urge to hang out a welcome
sign for blood relatives, in-laws, out-laws, kissing cousins and stray animals
or digging in with cold emotion and a quarantine sign, boarding up windows and
padlocking doors against intrusion. The Oxymoron Diaries' Twelve Ounce
Poundcake (Life is an Oxymoron), tells the story of Abigail Nutter,a local
writer temporarily forced into multi-generation serfdom, disrupting her daily
life in sadly amusing, mildly psychotic ways. As evidenced throughout the
telling by random sprinklings of oxymora, she routinely takes her inspiration
from everyday life, causing her family to frequently prefer she write her
column in invisible ink. From 'plastic glasses' to 'nice and sleazy' and 'cold
as hell' to 'safe sex', each chapter is subtitled by a relevant oxymoron,
subtly teasing readers with the upcoming possibilities.
Abby's mother, Eve, a control freak, and her editor, Kemper, a sixty-something
nymphomaniac and plastic surgery junkie, add to the endless instances of
oxymoron humor, but no one more so than Belly, her nearly ninety-nine year old
grandmother and self-proclaimed living fossil, who has been dropped on her
doorstep for the winter.
Abby's husband, Bryan, who she fondly calls Moh, except when he's in trouble
and she calls hiim Mohby Dick, is dismayed when two months later Abigail
suggests their uninvited guest live with them permanently.
Hence ensues many emotional ups and downs, laughter, tears and heartbreak
before the Nutter family realizes that with a touch of humor and a sprinkling
of unconditional love, they can turn burdens into welcome loads. What surprises
them the most is how Belly does not fit into the burden category as much as
they anticipated. Broken marriages, broken families, and broken bonds turn out
to weigh so much more than a ninety-nine year old sprite of a woman.
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Click here for an excerpt of The Oxymoron Diaries "Twelve Ounce Poundcake".
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Think of it this way ... you KNOW you have to get something accomplished that is very important, but you also have a million other commitments and a million other items that need to be accomplished that are very important. Plus you may be the only person around you who has her act together most of the time, but some days after the important stuff is done, you literally fall to pieces. You were strong enough to accomplish your goal, but the second it was done, YOU were done. PERIOD. 
e pain about it comes in with the preparation to shut down. You can't just click start and go for it. Well, you can, but you might lose some important stuff. For instance, I needed to click start and shut down last night. But before I could do that I needed to X out of 8 webpages, 4 word documents, 3 excel spreadsheets, and 3 programs.
Okay, okay, you made me do it. It's simple. I don't want that crap in my burgers. In fact, from what I've read, if pink slime is included, there very well could be a higher incidence of actual CRAP in my burgers!
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