The List, Always The List

Daily writing prompt

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

View all responses

I put off watering my garden on the south side of our house where it is sunny and the plants are always super happy but starting to look a bit dry, and then it rained.

I put off mending the sweater that has been draped on the chair next to me for six months.

I put off practicing Tai Chi in my kitchen using the DVD that my old instructor made that has the faintest chimey music in the background. I do regularly dust the DVD player.

I put off finishing all the files in my NokBox so that my executor (who is also my daughter) would know everything there is to know about us when we kick off except, she rightly says, “why don’t you just send all that info to me in a file?” It does feel a little like building a little crypt for ourselves, like I should put a bottle or two of Spotted Cow and some ranch Doritos in there amidst the bank statements and who should be notified when we die assuming that Facebook doesn’t do its job properly.

I put off filling the bird feeders until the birds gave up on us and took up with other more conscientious people. Today, I embarked on a mission to lure them back. They are rightly suspicious of such fickle friends.

I put off brushing my dogs until I noticed fat clumps of white hair on the floor and then brushed them both – the white dog and the black dog – until there was a great pile of dog hair. We have a friend who spins dog hair and then makes mittens. That is no joke. There is a pair in the closet.

I put off paying the water bill for our place up north because I am irked at their crummy zoning enforcement. They, of course, will never make this connection, this tiny protest, but I do, and it is satisfying but only until they cut the water off.

I put off watering the Hostas on the north side of my house because the hose wouldn’t reach and then blamed the bunnies for chewing all the leaves, knowing that it was actually my fault that the Hostas folded in on themselves and now I await winter to cover up my negligence.