I feel like I am one of those people in life who learns things the hard way due to the power of procrastination over my soul. I try to make lists, I try to be organized but in all reality I am like the needle in a haystack. So tiny and small that I get lost in all the adulting around me. The consequences of said procrastination are always in the back of my mind, yet I continue to make decisions that eventually lead to my downfall. Here is one such story of catastrophe… because that is the only word to describe what I was about to experience due to my lack of appropriate decision making.
I got a puppy. Enough said. End of story. For all dog owners out there you know what I am talking about. They said it wouldn’t be easy. They said it would be awful. They said it would be the best and worst thing I ever did in my life. Sure, I remember my sister telling me about the time her kids let the dog escape from her house without her knowing. Said dog “Chloe” has a never-ending stomach whose entire existence revolves around what she can eat next. She managed to get into her neighbors’ backyard and swallow their expensive steaks whole like a seagull swallowing a fish. Did I mention it was the first BBQ of the season, and as we all know too well in Canada, you wait a solid 5 months without BBQ due to frigid weather. And to the people who BBQ in this weather y”all are cra. To my sisters’ horror, the neighbors informed her of her dogs’ unsightly actions. Needless to say she was beyond horrified. She even offered them her convenient dinner of fish sticks to which they politely declined and opted for the nearest reservation at a restaurant. Despite all of this, despite all the other malicious stories of puppies I had heard, I needed one. I NEEDED to have one.
Basically puppies are the devil reincarnate and you should definitely get one. I part blame the dog, whose name is Roux, and I part blame my lack of foresight and incompetence to function on a basic adult level and also Lowes. It was a perfect storm. Which leads us into the paint story. Aaaaah paint. So lovely in its ability to completely transform a space. Ranko and I bought an older house that had a kitchen with “sunshine” yellow walls. Here is the thing about being a paramedic… you relate every color of bodily fluids to the color. In my head I saw bile after vomiting yellow, poop yellow, infection yellow (my least fav), and the obvious urine yellow, but nowhere in there did I see the sunshine part. Especially in a space where I am supposed to be cooking my food… though eating my lunch in the ambulance never discouraged me before but there is something about bringing work home that I try to avoid. I think my job as a paramedic has forever ruined my ability to see bodily function paint colors as “nice’. So after many hours of consideration I decided on an off white, Sherwin Williams Alabaster to be exact. I make medical decisions in a time sensitive manner but you make me choose a paint color and it’s like watching a clam come out of its shell, in real time.
I have this ability to overestimate the tasks that I take on. While deciding on paint for the kitchen, I got obsessed with refurbished furniture and decided that I was going to buy and restore an old dresser. I had a vision and needed to make it come to life. I was bargaining on Facebook marketplace and found an old dresser that was exactly what I needed. I continued to call my local furniture Sherpa (my friend Jake who has a truck) and scheduled a pickup for said dresser. I fatefully left my recent prized possessions on the kitchen table before I left the house. A slight, a slight part of me thought to put the paint can away as I rushed out of the house and another part thought “it will be fine”. This is the procrastination part of my brain that overrides the normal functional part. “I’ll do it later, it will be fine”. This is one of the hardest lessons I have learned in procrastination. Not because it caused me harm, but because it caused me work. Evil procrastination brain said to leave it and it would be fine. Fast forward two hours later and I came home to a puppy who had pulled the bucket of paint off the kitchen table. I partly also blame Lowes for switching to plastic cans instead of metal. When the can hit the floor the bucket popped open and an entire gallon of paint was free to leak onto our hardwood floors.
Roux had no idea what he had done, obviously because he is innocent. He had tracked the paint EVERYWHERE. Then it dried. The only word I could muster was “paint”. I spent the next five minutes trying to corral Roux in the bathroom but due to his delight of me coming home, had to run around like a manic to show me his appreciation of my presence. The one thing about paint is there is no easy way to clean it up. I resorted to using a dust pan to try and scoop the paint that was still wet. I immediately called for backup as I quickly became overwhelmed with the task I had before me. Jake and Brianne graced my presence bearing beer and putty knives. We then spent the next few hours painfully scraping paint off the hardwood floor. I was left with a white grout effect and days later I was still finding paint spatter on the floor. Eventually I found a solution which was a life saver. The stain touchup pen helped to mask the white grout effect and helped to return my floor to a somewhat normal appearance however I will forever have a white paw print on the carpet of the stairs.
I now know that if I fail to listen to my inner adult there may be severe consequences. I am learning to get better at puppy proofing my home because they are essentially small toddlers trapped in furry bodies.
Sheena Sojourn 