One of my regular jobs is to make the bed each morning. I always get up first and head off to the gym before breakfast. Marilyn read for a bit with her coffee, then gets up just before I'm expected home, pulls back the bed to air and leaves it for me to sort out at the appropriate time. I think it annoys her that, invariably, she needs to remind me that it hasn't been done.
"It won't make itself," she will say, or "Has the bed fairy been yet?"
It's not that I'm avoiding the job or that I am strategically 'forgetting'; it's that there is nowhere in my brain a little system that will remind me that the job has to be done. The only trigger I have that the job has not yet been completed, is if I happen to walk past it and see that it is still folded back.
Marilyn has a virtual check-list in her brain which tells her what needs to be done for the day: wash, put out the clothes, bring in the clothes, make lunch, water the lettuces, and so on. Mentally, she ticks them off and she won't rest until everything is complete. My brain doesn't have that facility. I need a written checklist to keep track of what responsibilities I have.
Not as efficient, I grant you, but I suspect I was one of the last of the pre-war models before modern technology began to have an influence.
The Coles man has just delivered an order for us: nice fellow, a bit older than most of the blokes who drive their trucks. He apologises for standing on the doorstep but he's not allowed to deliver early and he is, in fact 2 minutes ahead of time. He and Marilyn chat about inconsequential things for 2 minutes, he checks a box on his screen and leaves for his next delivery. One thing he did say is that the only thing to do with the 8 or 10 red patterned bags which were used to bring our stuff is to bin them. Apparently, there is no way for them to be recycled. Australia's only recycling plant for 'soft plastics' has had a fire and China doesn't want any more of the world's rubbish.
Where will it end?
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