Life is a chair of bowlies. I think that was in Forrest Gump. I don’t remember that movie much. I really only remember Forrest Gump sitting on a park bench. I think he was in the South. Yes, I remember he was in the South in some Southern park on a bench. And he had on very square (as we hipsters used to call it back in the way back days of the 50’s and 60’s—even though I wasn’t born until 1964, I still use these terms once in a while…) anyway, he had on a very “square” outfit—he looked really goofy in his starched pants, and that’s about all I remember—he was eating a box of chocolates if I remember correctly. And now it’s all coming back to me. 

He didn’t say, “Life is a chair of bowlies” (that was my wife who said that—a twist on the “life is a bowl of cherries”—as if you didn’t know). He said, “Life is a box of chocolates.”

So there. The coffee hasn’t kicked in yet and I overslept. Or I think I overslept. I got about 7 hours of sleep. If that’s oversleeping then I’m in the wrong business. I tried, like a fool, I might add, to get up at 5 a.m., after going to bed after midnight. I woke up at 5, turned on the coffee maker and slept a little, or tried to sleep some more on the couch, so as not to wake my wife up, but she had already woken up and came stumbling into the living room and asked what I was doing. I told her I was getting a little cat nap, since I wanted to get up early, but I didn’t want to wake her up with phone alarms. She said, “Well I’m already up.” So we went back to sleep in the bed and I woke up at 7:24.

And now it’s 8:02 and the day is rapidly taking off down the runway of responsibilities.

Fix bathroom faucet, get Covid test, water the lawn, try and fix the garbage disposal—which I’ve put off for years—yes, years. I just kept putting it off and now it’s not a “Honey Do” list item; it’s a “You Better Get This Thing Fixed Buddy and Pronto” item.

And what else? Have to sign up for a new dentist and fill out a big fat form online.

Why do you care? Maybe you don’t.

But I’m sure we all have things, trivialities, daily responsibilities that get in the way of our truly flying through the air of our soul.

How can I make all those things I just listed a joy to do? Not tasks, but fun things? 

The fun list. It’s fun to go to Home Depot and hear them paging for assistance in plumbing all the time. Every time I go into Home Depot, they’re paging someone in plumbing to go help someone in the plumbing aisle. Everyone needs help with plumbing. That reminds me, I have to go to Home Depot or our little independent hardware store to fix the bathroom faucet assembly.

I could be lazy and call a plumber, but I know I can fix this thing. I’ve done it before, and if I haven’t (good possibility), I’ll just Google, “Fix bathroom faucet assembly.” And watch 22 YouTube videos on how to do it. And I’ll figure it out. Ask someone in the hardware store how to do it, buy the parts, I already have a bunch of plumbing tools (told you I’ve done this before…) and get it done.

Save probably at least 1-200 bucks.

But here’s the kicker: If I don’t do it soon, today, the leak will continue and my wife will add that to the list of things her husband keeps putting off so he can sit in his room and write, or spend hours on his phone posting TikTok videos.

And that will lead to a very unfortunate argument or an “I’m sorry, honey…you’re right…” and I don’t need that, and she don’t need that, and you don’t need that.

Because, rest assured, I’ll be writing about it right here in this blog if it happens.