I’ll tell you this about my life.  I do most of the grunt work around the house.  Most of the time, I don’t mind it.  Sometimes… I truly enjoy it.  However.  When a certain “somebody” goes out of town… I am left to the charge of caring for the outdoor potted plants.

This I do not enjoy.  For several reasons.  I was born with pink thumbs.  Right out of the womb… I was pink like a baby.  Not green.  There is not a green thing on me.  Except for maybe pickles, when I am snarfing down a cheeseburger.   With that said….. I possess absolutely no aptitude for the care of anything with leaves on it.

But back to the foliage which garners our home.

I did not plant those pots full of flora.  Sure.  I think they are pretty enough.  But an nice big old bed of rocks is a far better choice in my estimation.  I would rather spend my time getting root canals, than watering plants.  But… when the cat is away, the mouse has to get out the old watering can… and… the  garden hose.

Which brings me to this.  There has to be a better design for the common garden hose.  Why is this so difficult?  They are either awkward and heavy… or too light and pinched up. Here at our house, we have tried every variety of hose under the sun.  And we have yet to find a suitable companion.

One of the varieties we have now are those coil designs.  You know…. they look like a slinky.  In theory they are grand.  Yet, in practice…. they are lacking.  Sure, sometimes they work okay.  But when the go wrong…. they go MISERABLY wrong.

Today I found my self trying to untwist, and unknot, and unfurl one of those said hoses.  Forty minutes later, I was cursing the rubber gods about me.  I could see what I thought was the logical direction it should go.  So.  I kept trying to untwist this thing, but the harder I fought, the worse that dang hose became entangled.

I was just about completely exhausted from the battle before me, when I stopped.  I took a deep breathe.  And then I tried to do the opposite of what had not been working.

The new direction the hose was going made no sense in my head…. but I proceeded any how.  I mean… the previous way kept NOT working… over and over again.   And like some kind of hosey miracle, the thing coiled back to its perfect shape.

Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  I know this to be true.  I keep learning this lesson…. again and again and again.

And when it slaps me in the face… for the 99th time in my life…. I just have to laugh at myself for being so gosh-darn-human.

All of this, because I had to water the geraniums.

“Thud, thud, thud.” – Sound of Polly’s head banging against the wall

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.” – Vernon Law