Hellacious Employment

In life, there are tasks that are loathsome.  Such activities would try even the patience of those who qualify as the poster children for patience.  Job.  Mother Theresa.  Joan Rivers' plastic surgeon.  For some of these tasks, however, there always seems to be someone who as mastered it and has the be all, end all, cure all solution for the situation.  They share their knowledge; others jump, ready to try it for themselves.  Success, it would seem, is non-transferable.  What was like a hot knife through butter for one is like a 2x4 against a brick wall for another.  I submit to you the following list of activities that are so odious and exasperating (see, there's that Master's Degree...the $.50 words won't cost you any extra, though)that they are perfectly suited for the unfortunate souls, who will be spending their eternity in Hell.  I don't know if there will be jobs in Hell.  I don't know if there will be jobs in Heaven.  Humor me. 

Stripping wallpaper:  In the name of all that is good and kind, I promise you that I haven't found ANYTHING that is more mind numbing that this.  I have NEVER had a good experience with it.  We stripped the hallway in our house in SMALLtown, GA and this past week, we stripped the main bathroom at MILove's house.  We actually finished the hallway at our house...we did not, to our great consternation, finish MILove's bathroom.  This is not a large room.  From the hall, it is maybe five linoleum squares across and maybe five in the other direction before you get to the bathtub.  One corner stripped to the wall primer without and trouble.  Not being one given to a natural disposition of optimism, Mr. Snark went wild...strip it Monday, spackle and sand on Tuesday, paint and bead board on Wednesday.  By noon on Wednesday, we were all beyond frustrated...about one-quarter of the paper remained and seemed to be hanging on for dear life.  Mind you, this is four people working in shifts...using a couple of different methods for dissolving the adhesive and LOTS of elbow grease.  Mr. Snark did spackle about one quarter of the room and MILove kindly dismissed her in-house work crew, being very happy with what were able to accomplish.  She's the bestest boss lady, EVER!  Please....I am not in the mood to entertain your fool proof method to removing wallpaper.  I've tried so many and none of them work.  As far as I'm concerned, the best methods are quite simple....DON'T use wallpaper in your home decor but if you do, hire a professional crew to take it down. 

Unwrapping wads of S*ran Wrap:  I don't like cling wrap but I keep a roll in my kitchen arsenal because it is a necessary evil.  Once it folds up on itself, it is nearly impossible to straighten it back out.  I have thrown packages of this stuff to the floor out of sheer frustration. 

Facing baby food jars on the shelves:  I worked at Kr*ger's the summer Mr. Snark and I married.  When things were slow on the cashier lanes, we straightened the shelves.  Most of them weren't bad.  The baby food section was the least favorite and if your cashier lane was closest to that section, that's the one you straightened.  I guess it was the fact that the jars are so little and can be stacked in higher stacks than other items...like cans of soup.  People would get in there and plunder and move stuff.  Of course, there won't be babies in Hell....that's what makes this job perfect.  They will always be a mess and the stock will never change.

Swatting gnats:  Particularly the gnats in south Georgia.  They are tenacious and masters at avoiding death.  Visitors to south Georgia are usually overwhelmed by the friendliness of the residents...all the waving and such.  Yeah, they aren't waving at you...they are swatting gnats.

Untangling phone cords:  Of course, with the advent of wireless technology, this task is nearly outdated.  For those of us remaining land line holdouts, those spiral phone cords can kink and curl back on themselves quicker than most small town politicians!  Unplugging both ends and working from one end to the other might just work...or it might not.  Maybe that's the REAL reason cordless phones were invented.

Unclogging the perpetually blocked drain:  No matter how much drain cleaner or gunk remover you use...it still won't drain properly.  Have an untimely plumbing back-up on Thanksgiving Day and introduce one's offspring to the wonders of the drain snake.  Things seem to be pretty good after than and then about a month later, the draining action slows down again.  It's almost the definition of insanity...doing the same thing over and over with no change in the outcome.

Putting panty hose on wet legs:  Ok, I know that it is safe to assume that the male audience will have no clue about this (and if you do, please don't tell me...I don't want to know!).  After PE, in high school, we were required to take full showers.  Just rinsing off at the sink wasn't good enough...NO!  The particular coach I had never gave us enough time to shower and dress and make it to our next class.  So this meant taking FAST showers and wrestling back into your clothes without opportunity to properly dry off.  We wore hose when we wore skirts, back then...the bare legged movement hadn't quite caught on...without fail, one leg would go on twisted and make the rest of the day SO much fun!  Of course, there won't be any water in Hell, but putting panty hose on in a mad dash is just as challenging.

Searching for the second sock:  All socks have a match when they go in the washer.  Everything visible is removed from the washer when it completes the task.  Then do tell me why, oh WHY, is there always one sock missing when it comes time to fold the laundry?  This is why laundry is a minor bane of my existence.

Manually rewinding unspooled cassette tapes:  The whippersnappers won't understand this with their fancy cd's and Mp3's.  It always seemed that no matter how carefully I addressed this task, at the very end, the tape would kink and I'd have to start all over again.

Finding the free edge on a roll of packing tape:  It makes your heart race when you find the corner and pull it up just enough to get the whole thing going and then it tears off a strip around the whole roll.  Now the free edge is layered AND uneven.

Opening packages encased with molded plastic:  You know the ones...there seems to be no good point of entry and there really isn't.  Kitchen scissors, kitchen knives, box cutters, utility scissors:  I've used them all and sometimes, all on one package!

Pushing shopping buggies with wheel issues:  Let's see...there's the wheel that won't roll unless you pull the buggy toward you and then roll forward and this must be repeated every five feet.  There's the buggy with the shaky front end.  There's the one with a wheel that won't roll at all.  There's the one with the blown out wheel...like it's down to the rim or it has a flat.  There's the cart with the steering issues...it wants to pull to the left or it wants to pull to the right.  By the time you finish your shopping, you're exhausted from fighting with it.  Yes, you could just get another one, but it's a big risk!

That's my list...I'm sure there are others.  Don't take my cheekiness as blasphemy.  I'm just having a little fun.  And that's not illegal, just yet.

Comments