Obsessing pays off

Monday, 3:48 pm

By Kate

May

14

2007

I have some baby grass today. I am so excited! I mean, yes, I hate grass, but as long as I have to have it, I’m gratified to know that it has decided to sprout for me. There’s not a whole lot of it yet, but I’m sure there will be more tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Considering the amount of water I’ve poured over them, they’d darned well better grow. Nice and thick, too.

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So. Now that the lad has been home for a couple of days, reality sets in a bit. I’m back to being grumpy ole mom on a mission.

Yesterday morning when I woke up, I heard his television going. I knew it was too early for him to be awake. Sure enough, he was sleeping and the television wasn’t. There is a marvelous invention called a built in timer. It is our friend.

Last evening, I told him with a very straight face that I’ll be darned if he’s going to screw up my pretty monthly electricity usage graphs. At least no more than absolutely necessary. (I showed him my graphs and he observed that while they are indeed very pretty, they might suggest an obsession. Perhaps, I said, but it’s an inexpensive one and it makes the earth and me happy. Argue with that.) Electricity in this joint is on a meter and I read it almost every day.

Likewise, his computer was still on with a screen saver. Nix that.

And, of course, he’s been doing one load of laundry after another. Since he arrived home with approximately 6 huge trash bags full of dirty laundry he had to wash a few things right away in order to have something clean to wear. The first three loads went into the dryer and I cringed, but let it go. However....

Now that he has some clean clothes, the rest of the laundry can be washed at night and I’ll be more than happy to hang stuff outside on the rack to dry the next morning. It won’t take any longer for them to dry outside in the sunshine and breeze than it would in the dryer.

Okay, he said. Meekly.

The twenty minute shower? Nuh-uh.

Opening the refrigerator door twenty times a day just to gaze inside to see if anything new and tempting has joined the crowd since the last time he looked? Nuh-uh.

And, for heaven’s sake, turn out the lights when you leave a room.

Actually, he’s pretty agreeable about the whole thing, recognizing that he’s developed a number of profligate habits since he’s been away from home. (Colleges could saves themselves a bundle if they’d encourage (demand) a little bit of energy consciousness.) And he seems to like the idea of being more earth friendly now that he’s stopped to consider it again. While he teased me about my electricity usage graphs, he admitted that it’s a cool way to track progress and he’d feel bad to be the one responsible for messing them up. At least, any more than necessary.