Are You Ready?

Andrew McAllister, Ph.D. from To Love, Honor and Dismay left a comment on my Hoping to be Debugged post yesterday so I moseyed on over to see what his site was about and to return the favor if I was so moved. This fit with two of my goals: To stop being a lurker on other blogs and to start encouraging comments on my posts by at least acknowledging them in some way. Once again I am reminded why I find both so difficult. I spent two hours on Dr. McAllister’s site. Half of it reading posts and comments and the rest in composing a comment that would be more appropriate as a blog post and thus curtailing the time available for composing a new post for Joystory and for the blog reading and research and promotional tasks these precious online hours are dedicated too. There is never enough time.

Which brings me to the theme of the comment I left on this post of Dr. McAllister’s where he turns the table on his readers and asks them a question instead of answering submitted questions regarding relationships. He asks: Does your spouse ever ask a question that makes you groan? He is referring especially to those questions that are ‘no-win’ because every possible answer is loaded with potential trouble. Well I instantly flashed on a recent event that still makes my face burn because I didn’t handle it at all well. This is the verrry long comment I left for Dr McAllister:

The irksome question for me is some version of: Are you ready? Especially when asked upwards of an hour before the target time. Variations are: Are you packed? How much longer before ____? What do you have left to do?

The worst of all is: When can you be ready? because this is usually asked when an outing is sprung on me and the target time is ASAP. I just want to say Never. I'd rather stay home.

He and his family of origin are sticklers for being on time. Even early. I am as irritated by his need to be at work more than 30 minutes before he has to clock in as he is by my procrastination and the perpetual chaos surrounding my preparations for going somewhere.

My family of origin is notorious for being late. My Dad's attitude was similar to my husband's. It was my Mom who had the poor time sense. We were often fifteen to twenty minutes late to Church. I have improved on their track record with an average that is under ten minutes while my brother has been known to be hours late. My Mom almost made us late for my Dad's funeral last October.

There may be some ADD involved as my sister and her son were diagnosed with it several years ago and she thinks she sees all the signs of it in me and our brother and mother. But I'm skeptical as their diagnoses weren't done with brain imaging, just questionnaires and my research on ADD reveals that many professionals believe it to be waaaay over diagnosed.

The most recent occurrence of the dreaded question was last Saturday afternoon when my husband asked, Are you packed yet? This was made worse by the fact that he asked just minutes after I had asked him to clarify the exact time I was supposed to be ready to leave for his Grandmother's where I spend Saturday nights while he and his folks go to the dirt track races. I had just calculated from his answer that I had 2 hours--plenty of time to take a fifteen minute sit-down break from the chores and preparations--when he asked. I didn't want to arrive at Grandma's exhausted.

I forgot his mother was in earshot and I popped off with: I don’t need you to be my Daddy! My face is still burning over that one. It is hard to conduct a relationship while living in the home of one's in-laws!!!