This is my friend sleeping one night. Apparently he also does not have high expectations from life.
I don't like interacting with excrement. Most of us don't. As a species we've dedicated countless resources to creating materials, containers, and sewer systems just so we can avoid it. But there are still those unfortunate moments when we are faced with it and every parent, nurse, and portapotty cleaner knows that all you can do is grit your teeth and just take care of the poo.
You take care of the poo because there are some things that you just do. I suppose this makes me a rigid person. I remember overhearing a dinner party conversation when I was in fourth grade. One of the neighborhood parents asked my mom how she got me and my sister to do our homework. Both parents in that family also worked and they were struggling with getting their children to do their homework while no one was there to supervise. "Oh, they just do it when they get home," my mom explained. I remember being vaguely embarrassed because the neighbor went on to laud my mother over raising such well-behaved children. It seemed as though her response was overly complimentary. After all, isn't that just what you do?
This is the first time that I've really thought about that memory as an adult. As I think about all the possible things that her children might have spent their time doing instead of their homework, it occurs to me that maybe I wasn't a rigid child, but an unimaginative one. And, I've never grown out of it. When it comes to certain tasks, I never even consider an alternative to completing it because, in my mind, no alternative exists.
When I make a mental list of all of the tasks that fall into this category, they're generally day-to-day chores: wash dishes, recycle, brush my teeth, get up to go to work, etc. There are some "don't rules" that also come to mind: don't eat meat, don't buy Coke products, don't believe in "trickle down economics," and don't ever buy a luxury brand car (even if the mercedes symbol does kinda look like a peace sign).
You take care of the poo because there are some things that you just do. I suppose this makes me a rigid person. I remember overhearing a dinner party conversation when I was in fourth grade. One of the neighborhood parents asked my mom how she got me and my sister to do our homework. Both parents in that family also worked and they were struggling with getting their children to do their homework while no one was there to supervise. "Oh, they just do it when they get home," my mom explained. I remember being vaguely embarrassed because the neighbor went on to laud my mother over raising such well-behaved children. It seemed as though her response was overly complimentary. After all, isn't that just what you do?
This is the first time that I've really thought about that memory as an adult. As I think about all the possible things that her children might have spent their time doing instead of their homework, it occurs to me that maybe I wasn't a rigid child, but an unimaginative one. And, I've never grown out of it. When it comes to certain tasks, I never even consider an alternative to completing it because, in my mind, no alternative exists.
When I make a mental list of all of the tasks that fall into this category, they're generally day-to-day chores: wash dishes, recycle, brush my teeth, get up to go to work, etc. There are some "don't rules" that also come to mind: don't eat meat, don't buy Coke products, don't believe in "trickle down economics," and don't ever buy a luxury brand car (even if the mercedes symbol does kinda look like a peace sign).
