Monday, December 8, 2008

Who said retirement was gonna be easy?

I haven't posted lately. I know why. I've been feeling really low-down rotten for a couple weeks. Thanksgiving came and went and I hardly noticed it. We had a quiet dinner, just the three of us. Like always, Shirley prepared a fine meal (except for that turkey - which I really don't like.) Still, I can fill up on her great dressing, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. Who needs fowl (it's "foul" as far as I'm concerned.

I think my problem is from our tile floors. I've been crawling on hands and knees around our tile floors for more than a week. What happened was; I always thought the grout between the tiles was kind of a brown color. That is, until I took a closer look and realized the brown was really fourteen years accumulation of dirt. Frankly, all that filth made me sick. I had to start cleaning right away.

The problem is our house has around six hundred square feet of tile! That's a lot of crawling and cleaning, with only a stiff bristle brush and several jugs of special grout cleaner. I'll admit it! I hated every minute of it. But I did it. I faithfully crawled around our foyer, the bathrooms, the back hallway, cleaning tile floors. Every night I went to bed with sore knees, a bad temper and a worn out body (easy for a seventy-one year old fool to wear out.) After about forty hours or so I had the grout looking good. It was only then I realized I also had to go back all over it again, this time to SEAL the grout. It made me want to break down in tears but I did it, reluctantly, hesitatingly, I did it and now, a couple weeks later, the tile AND the grout look almost new.

Me? I don't look or feel anything like new. In fact, I look and feel older than the dirt I'd just cleaned out of that grout. I tell you - I'm worn out! My only solace is, by the time that grout gets that dirty again, I'll be gone - off to meet my maker - hopefully in a place where we won't even have to think about cleaning floors!

Then, right after the floors were finished, our water heater went belly up! That's right! It started leaking all over the washroom floor. So, I had to drain the tank, turn off the water and wait for a plumber (seeing as how it was late Saturday when we discovered the leak) just knowing he was going to kill me with his bill. He didn't disappoint!

So! Like I said at the start - I'm flat wore out! On the plus side I have nice, clean tile grout and a fine new water heater. Shirley tells me her big old whirlpool baths have never been so hot and luxurious ( I guess that's a plus.) As for me - I'm beaten down physically and mentally. And, by the way, I'm about $1,000 poorer!

My son, Daniel, is right now in his room with a raging case of bronchitis. My wife, Shirley, is in our bed, nursing a raging head cold. Me? I'm sitting here just knowing I'm gonna come down with something too. A man feels this lousy he should expect the flu or a virus to come along - knock him off his feed for a couple days?

Okay - I hear Shirley stirring in there so I'm gonna go in and see what I can do for her. Then I'm gonna go sit in a corner and sulk, maybe feel sorry for myself for a while.

Nice talking to you and stay well.

arkiedan

"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been." - Madeleine L'Engle

1 comment:

Grammyof13 said...

You are a hoot!!! and I have been missing you. Let me know how long you ride it out. (your sore knees and tired body). If it keeps your ticker ticking, I think you should find another job to keep you going. My dad has lived 100 years and has thrived on grouchy!!! See what you have to look forward to!

Don't wait so long to come back.

Doris