The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men

Whether you want to quote Robert Burns or John Steinbeck, either way, they were both right.

(Warning, there is a word at the bottom of this post that is not-suitable-for-children.)

My schemes (plans) today were so carefully laid out. We were taking my three-year old grandson to an Easter Egg Hunt in the morning (yes, I am atheist, but he is only three and hasn't decided what he is yet so we like to expose him to different choices) and then this afternoon, I was going to work on a scrapbook album with an online crafting class.

First, my grandson seemed very happy to be out in the park and was dancing around, seemingly very happy. His verbal communication skills are still minimal; he talks, just not in a language we understand. But then we had to sit on the bleachers while they explained "Why We Were There" aka "What Easter is All About". I'm not sure he really understood the woman who was explaining that the red M&Ms were there to symbolise Jesus's blood - but I'm sure he would have been grossed out if he did understand. It's candy, people, and these are little kids.

Side Note: Most of the other kids were mainly complaining about being cold during this part, and trying to keep warm. They didn't want to know what the red M&Ms meant either. Why did so many people dress their kids in lacy t-shirts when it's sixty degrees with a cold wind blowing? And not bring a jacket? But I digress.

Still, for whatever reason, he chose that moment to decide he wanted too leave. He started crying and got up and took my hand, so I took him back to the picnic area and tried to figure out what he wanted.

Apparently, he wanted to go home, because he kept taking my hand and leading me to the parking lot. Our car was behind another car and he couldn't see it and that's when he started crying in earnest. My husband tried to get him to calm down and hunt for candy-filled plastic eggs - the speech was apparently over and that's why we were there, after all - but he didn't want any part of it. He wanted to go home. I have some pictures - I made sure to take my camera along to get lots of glorious pictures of my grandson and the other kids enjoying the beautiful Spring day.

I got one picture of him smiling before the bleacher incident and in the rest he's crying or trying to get us to go home. After some discussion and analyzing of what he was actually doing while we were there and after we left, my husband and I think that he has an ear infection and the wind was bothering him.

The next plan for the day was a craft project gone awry, which you can read about on my craft blog here. That went only slightly better than the Easter Egg Hunt. There was no crying (yea!) but there was a mess and a migraine (boo!)

So Burns and Steinbeck were right. Never set too much store in your perfectly laid-out plans because something is bound to get fucked up somewhere along the line.

Know The Rules

Everyone has things they will or won't do. Things they like to do a certain way. (I'm not talking about anything dirty, get your mind out of the gutter!) For example, I live thirty-five minutes away from my grocery store. Also, I don't like milk that has been warm and then cooled again. So, if we put those two things together, it makes sense that, in warmer months, I won't buy milk unless I'm going directly home after grocery shopping. If I have to make a stop, my milk is going to get warm and I won't drink it even after it's been chilled in the refrigerator.

(*Do not bother to explain to me the process of homogenized milk. I know.)

I know I am like this; I acknowledge it and work around it, making sure to do all of my errands before I go to the grocery store. If it's really hot outside, I won't even buy milk at the grocery store, but stop on the way home at the little convenience store at the gas station and pay twice as much for the milk, just so it won't get warm before I get home.

It's a little thing, I know, but you get the idea. I have certain things I will do and will not do, and certain ways of doing things. That's part of who I am. When it comes to milk, those are the rules.

One thing that drives me crazy is people who don't acknowledge their own rules.  They say they'll drink the milk even if it gets warm, but then they don't, meaning that I have a gallon of milk that no one will drink, but I feel like I can't go buy more milk because I already have a gallon of milk in the fridge!

Most of the rules people have are much bigger than my milk example. I don't mind if you have rules, I have them too. But don't tell me you don't have any rules and then time after time after time, when it comes time to drink the milk, you won't do it. You're lying to yourself and more importantly, you're lying to me.

And lying to me is one rule you won't like the consequences of.

Number Four

What does it mean, exactly, to be 'sorry'? Is it just an apolgy for a behavior? Is it a way of getting out of an unpleasant situation? Is it just something to say because you think the other person wants to hear it even though you have no idea what you did wrong?


Or do you actually have to be expressing remorse?


To me, the words "I'm sorry" should only be used when you are genuinely remorseful about something you've done. Not sorry that the other person got upset about it; not sorry that you got caught. We really need to find other words to use in any situation other than your own genuine remorse over your own actions.


"I'm sorry" is supposed to be an apology. Most psychologists will tell you that an apology has three parts.


1. Being remorseful about your own actions.
2. Understanding and acknowledging aloud - to the person(s) in question - that those actions have hurt someone either physically or emotionally.
3. Trying your best, if at all possible, to rectify or fix the situation - to put things back to the way they were before.


And here's where I differ from the articles I've read. There is a fourth element to being 'sorry', in my opinion.


4. Not doing it again.


And number four is the kicker. You have to have number four. Without number four, you're just spewing words that are polluting the world with their insincerity, adding to the filth that already makes our air unbreathable.


I realise that sometimes number four is hard. Damned hard. For instance, I had unconsciously learned a behaviour from my mother while I was growing up. I didn't consciously do it, my sister didn't consciously do it - we didn't even realise that we had learned to do it until someone pointed it out to me. That behaviour was to, in small, almost insignificant ways, demean men - most especially our husbands.


I know this seems like something that you couldn't possibly do without meaning to, but trust me, you can. Remarks, gestures, a roll of the eyes - there are hundreds of things we learned without knowing we were learning them.


When a friend pointed it out to me, I was flabbergasted. I remembered my mother doing it. I remembered my siblings and I commenting to each other that we wished our father would say something back (he never did). And once it was pointed out to me, I was mortified. I did not want to be that way.


I had a talk with my husband about it where I whole-heartedly apologised to him. I asked him why he had never said anything about it. He explained that he knew I had learned it from my mother, knew that I didn't do it consciously, and knew that I loved him; that he knew I didn't really mean the things I said.


There was nothing I could do to fix the sitaution at that moment, but I was determined to stop doing it.


Stopping doing something you don't know you're doing is damn near impossible. I am sarcastic by nature and that made it extra hard. Most of the things that come out of my mouth are sarcastic, but I have always tried very hard not to be demeaning. Except with my husband, apparently. The husband-filter had never been implanted in me or taken out by some means. I was determined to put it back in.


I started by trying very hard to think about every word that came out of my mouth before I said it. Being as sarcastic as I am, that was tough, but I tried. During this phase, which took literally a couple of years, I would be having a conversation with someone and if I found myself saying something that was in any way insulting to my husband, I would just stop talking, mid-word. My friends thought I was insane(r). They would ask me to finish what I was saying and I would change the subject completely, never explaining why I had stopped. I didn't want to admit, to anyone other than my husband, that I had ever done it or why. And exlaining why I had stopped talking would mean admitting the behaviour.


It took a long time. But I did it. Again, it took years to unlearn something I didn't even realised I had learned. So it can be done, if you want to badly enough.


Not that I am never sarcastic to him now, or never insult him. But now I only do it when he does something stupid - and never, ever in front of other people.


So I practice what I preach. You must include number four, or your apologies are just words that dirty up the air and add further insult to injury.


Number four. Memorise it. Learn it. Practice it. Do it.