By Shelly Sargent (From Family Matters Magazine - Spring/Summer 2012)
I’m seriously considering preparing and
offering a course at a local community college. Entitled “Remedial Piling
101″, this course will be an intensive, hands on foray into the mystical
world of being able to have enough counter space to make a sandwich - even after
clearing off the dinner table.
You guessed
it… I’m knee-deep in the process of turning my two wonderful kids
into responsible, functioning members of society. This is a job that
requires equal doses of the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon
(and a healthy dose of the luck of the Irish). In the process of
getting my offspring raised, I’ve often been forced to grit my teeth and
cheerfully (not) accept poorly folded towels and sort-of washed dishes as
I wait for the requisite the skill set to be learned. Usually, this
“skill set learning” moves along relatively quickly – taking a mere 3-6 years for most lessons to sink in. But in
our house, we have an “ISSUE”…. and that issue involves piling. Not the inability to pile… in fact, quite the
opposite.
We have piles
everywhere. Piles of papers. Piles of books. Piles of dishes. Piles of games and videos. They are everywhere… and there is a dark side
to all this piling. You see, my children seem unable to grasp the
concept that it is possible to pile things of a similar size together
in an effort to save space. Using a
standard example, you should be able to stack all 10″ plates together, with all
the saucers stacked nicely before adding them to the top of the pile of
plates. Then you could top it all off
with several cereal bowls – nicely nestled inside each other. Alternately, a
large magazine, with a smaller one on top, followed by a Reader’s Digest.
When stacking is done in this manner – it’s almost
poetic.
But
a typical pile in our house goes something like this: Put a thimble on
the table. Now add a Sears’s catalogue, followed by a satin blouse, 3
barrettes, a water pistol, a dinner plate adorned with half a jam
sandwich and a half-finished glass of milk. Now pile on 2 dead
batteries and finish off with today’s mail, two sheets that need signed
and sent back to school and your lunch bag (with today’s remnants still inside
and the zipper open, of course). Try to arrange the entire pile on a
teeter-y table corner near a high traffic area. And of course it is
absolutely imperative that you then be loudly critical of the poor buffoon who
inadvertently sets the whole pile akimbo by simply walking by on their way to
another room.
This piling problem is a terrible
affliction, to be sure but I’d be a lot more concerned about my own kids
if I wasn’t hearing about similar situations taking place in other homes
in the area. And I have to be honest… it isn’t just offspring who suffer
this malady. It’s come to my attention that many people have spouses,
parents and grandparents who may also be in need of some pointers on
piling.
Now it needs to be said: I’m not much of a
teacher. But I feel somewhat duty-bound
to offer a solution if I can. So here I sit – working on my
curriculum. So far I’ve decided the course will need to feature a
lecture series (Proper Piling for Fun & Profit); a hands on
project (Make these 6 objects fit into less than 36 square feet); and a
four hour round table session in which we use “aversion therapy” techniques
to work past possible psychological blocks that may be causing the piling
problem.
Can my specialized training and piling
interventions work? Is it possible we could
change our errant pile-makers into responsible members of society? With
the proper courses and enough time - I believe anyone could be reformed.
Mind you – I am an incurable optimist… (And that’s a whole other
topic, believe me!)
As for my (imaginary) college for the
pile-challenged among us - drop me a line if you want to enrol anyone you know. The applications forms are in a pile here
somewhere…
