I put this off for awhile because it was difficult to come up with seven things I don’t like.  Not because there aren’t at least seven, but because if I don’t like them I don’t want to think about them either.

These are some:

      I never liked lists. Making them or reading them. Lately I’ve been reading them. At least one per day here.  Making lists? Nix. It takes too long and I lose the post-it it’s on anyway. My wife loves it when I say I’ll go to the store to help. She’ll rattle off all the ingredients for a dinner and think I’m taking notes. In illegible handwriting all it says is “Mex food” and I doodle a taco.

I don’t actually hate doing laundry. I hate having it done for me. It seems wrong. I was a latch key kid before the phrase for “parents have to work” became part of the culture. So I learned to do it. I don’t want my wife to have to sort through my skuzzy stuff and this way I know it’s my fault when something gets into the wrong batch. No hollerin’ either direction.

Same thing with the ironing.  Did it as a kid. Skipped the college years as it was not necessary to look natty in a bar that was eight inches deep in peanut shells, spilled beer and cigarette butts. Now I have a Rowenta. Heavy duty, not some light weight thing. I do all the ironing around here.It's my iron. My wife does her best to foil me with darts and pleats and ruffled collars etc., but I cannot be stopped. The iron is so heavy that you can steam the drapes.

Drapes are ugly. We live in a 100 year old house with all the original wide casings, headers and mouldings in place. I don’t want to hide them. So it’s wooden slat blinds. Except for the bathroom upstairs which has a plain roller blind that keeps me from seeing my neighbor. Her husband came over to get my help the day after the raccoons came to his door one night and woke them up. They sleep in separate rooms I was told and he said she had run through the house in her nightie screaming and he almost gave up the ghost. She’s not a looker is the nicest thing I can say. He died not too long after this. So I got the blind because I don’t want the same thing to happen to me accidentally.

This is just plain neurotic. A wooden handled spatula dropped in the sink and then needing to be retrieved gives me the creeps. A mature description would be that it feels icky. I can work outside all day chopping wood and getting soaked in a Northwest rain. Non-issue. Get the spatula? Nope. Drain the sink. Pick up the spatula by the tip of the rubber part and drop it in the dishwasher like it has the plague smeared on it.

Boredom sets in and there are other things to do. Then I feel guilty for not being so great at “multi-tasking” which I guess is a solution for some people who haven’t figured out what they prefer to be doing.