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Signs of Life

Nancy L. Horner

Such is Life

My husband used to have an expression he occasionally used––a verbal shrug, of sorts. "Such is life," he would say about something or other, dumping his socks on the floor after tracking in plenty of dirt and leaves for me to clean up. "He's a little too laid-back," I would think to myself.

I was thinking about that old expression, one day, as I was vacuuming the entry rug and the living room carpet, picking up the detritus of one very sloppy husband and the offspring who unfortunately followed his example. In the midst of vacuuming, my mind dodged off on a tangent when I suddenly remembered that I'd seen the newspaper sitting in the bright yellow delivery tube attached to our mailbox as I pulled the Honda into the driveway.

Knowing my memory has been peppered with early-onset senior moments, I decided I should go ahead and fetch the paper before the thought made a hasty retreat. So I turned off the vacuum, laced up my shoes and threw on my coat, preparing to dash out into the icy air to fetch the paper.

On the way out, I noticed an empty box near the front door. Might as well break that down and carry it to the trash can while I was facing the chill winter air. I snatched the box and ripped off the tape that secured the bottom flaps, flattening down the cardboard as I walked.

When I reached the trash can I tucked the flattened box inside, noticing as I did that the other trash can, sitting lid-less for some reason unbeknownst to me, was almost completely full of water from the previous three days' rain. I could leave the rainwater to deal with later, but what if it warmed up? I really didn't have any desire to raise disease-bearing mosquitoes. So, I decided I would carefully tip over the trash can and slowly let the water out.

Water, of course, is tremendously heavy and a large bin of it is really not carefully tip-able. After a brief attempt, I came to the conclusion that I should just shove the thing over and let the water run down the driveway. I gave it a good push and danced backwards to keep from getting water all over my new black suede booties.. I would pick up the trash can after it had dried out a bit.

Satisfied, I returned to the living room and my idle vacuum cleaner. As I closed the door, I noted a small stain on the edge of the entry rug and told myself to remember to clean that as soon as I finished the vacuuming.

Shoving the vacuum across the living room carpet, I noticed there were an awful lot of little stains that looked vaguely like mud streaks. I would have to remind the guys to take their shoes off by the front door.

Every time I turned around, another stain seemed to pop up out of nowhere. Where on earth were these things coming from? Then, I had a rather time-delayed epiphany... I was still wearing my new black suede booties. I looked down at my feet and cringed. On the edge of one shoe was a long glob of something so disgusting and slimy, it resembled the gunk that contained the origin of life in a movie I once viewed––pure, unredeemably nasty goo. Yuck.

I carefully removed my shoes and, as I was cleaning them, wondered to myself, "Did I leave the newspaper on the car or bring it in?" I removed the shoe slime and followed up with a bit of spot scrubbing on carpet and rug. Then, I looked around the house. No newspaper.

I threw on a pair of slip-on shoes and ran outside. There in the tube sat the newspaper, completely untouched. I could have sworn I fetched it and put it on the car when I tipped over the trash can that dumped the water which probably contained the slime that ended up on my shoe which I smudged across the carpet, making mucky streaks that I blamed on everyone else. Funny how all that stuff connected into some sort of chain-reaction fiasco that led to a good bit of on-all-fours scrubbing. And all I really wanted to do was bring in the paper.

Ah, well.. Such is life.