What Do You Think YOU'RE Doing?

Anyone ever ask you, "What do you think you're doing?" Not "What are you doing?" That's pretty obvious. But "What do you think you're doing" is a poser. My stepdad asked it regularly. And not just of me.  Of an impatient driver pulling around on the shoulder back in the days when you could cross Kansas at 80 mph. Of some woman struggling to parallel park in a spot he'd been eyeing for half a block. Of my mother, when she'd gather up seemingly empty plates from chicken dinners before he or my Aunt Carolyn or my Aunt Juanita had sucked the marrow from the ends of their drumsticks and wings.

Here's the thing:
I always just assumed I knew what I thought I was doing. Like when Mother asked me what I was doing when my gasps alerted her that she was rolling up the back window of our Studebaker on my neck. "Looking around," I squeaked out. Seemed pretty obvious to me.

But in all honesty, sometimes when I glance into life's unrelentingly accurate rearview mirror, I do wonder what in the heck I did think I was doing.

This challenging starter table actually outlasted the
starter marriage. This is the start of round two.

For example, what did I think I was doing as a young housewife when I bought a drop-leaf dining room table for versatility, only to realize that you could seat four or eight with decorum, but if you wanted to seat six or ten, four people were going to be straddling the fixed legs. This precipitated years of awkward dinner parties where I apologetically instructed people to wedge a table leg between theirs.

Or when, a little older and no wiser, I decided that a remodel of our 30-foot long kitchen wouldn't be complete without removing the laundry chute that ran from the upstairs bathroom to the basement. I gained just enough space to park a stool for me to sit on to catch my breath as I lugged loads of laundry down two flights of stairs as well as up.

That was the same remodel where I mismeasured just a tad, resulting in the bathroom sink snugging up so close to the perpendicular (Yes, Margaret, there is a use for geometry class) toilet that only one of the two metal support legs could be reattached, and gentlemen had to stand slightly to the right side of the toilet bowl. During one of many grad school gatherings, my thesis director, Phil Schneider, happy to advise in all things, said all that was missing was a fuzzy seat cover that would force the standing user to brace the seat up with his right knee. In my defense, as it turned out, that was THE PLACE to be when you had the flu or a hangover and needed both bowls simultaneously.

Here's a funny thing--with age comes no clearer understanding of what I think I'm doing.

Like when I allowed a two-year-old grandchild to sleep with me, waking up to her soft, warm breath in my ear: "Meme, I peed in your bed."

Then there's the time I decided it would provide closure to take two- and four-year-old granddaughters out to see where our rescue dog Annie was recently buried. They stared dutifully at the ground, then the four-year-old asked, "Is God in there?" "Um, no," I answered, wondering for the first time what her parents might have discussed with her about death and afterlife and why I'd taken them to see the grave in the first place. "There's just Annie's body," I said. Frowning at me she asked, "No head?"

The current WDYTYD project involves replacing fencing we took down when we moved to the country to create Four Mile Horse Ranch. I'm not sure what I was thinking as my husband and Good Neighbor Lucas and his son Isaiah removed the cattle panels and T-posts--probably something about majestic creatures racing free across the land.  Now I'm thinking that if I don't create a dry lot to curb my Tennessee Walker's enthusiastic grass intake, he'll only be able to waddle around our seven acres.

Here's another funny thing; all these years later, I really wish I'd thought to ask Dad what he thought I thought I was doing. Truth is, at the time, I didn't give it much thought. Maybe that was his point.

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