An Empire of Pathetic - June 9, 2018
Finally, a club that will have me! It’s the “Pathetic Runners” group on facebook. To become a member, you have to answer two questions correctly.
1. Have you ever won a marathon? The correct answer is “no,” but I did one better. “I have never even entered a marathon.”
2. How pathetic of a runner are you? My answer, “My walking speed is faster than my running speed.”
I was accepted immediately…which got me to thinking. I could set up an empire of these. Here are some examples.
Pathetic Mothers Group
How pathetic are you? Well, when Anna was about Emma’s age, she fell off some climbing bars. She said her arm hurt and we assured her that it was normal and we had her walk home. She was still hurting in the wee hours and Laur took her to emergency. She came back with a cast for a green stick fracture. Oops!
Pathetic Dog Owners
How pathetic? We adopted a retired shih tzu – Trotty – when one of our other dogs Poppyseed was starting to decline. (Fewer than three dogs? Who could live like that?) We put Trotty out to use the bathroom in our fenced in backyard and a few minutes later, when we went to bring him back in, he was GONE! He was found about a mile from our place and brought to a local shih tzu breeder. Thankfully he was tattooed so this breeder called Trotty’s breeder and we were able to get him back. How embarrassing!
Pathetic Car Owners
After buying our latest van, we took it back a day later. Laur was getting AC on his side of the van but I wasn’t. The lad who sold us the van looked at the situation and said, “Oh, you need to turn on the AC for the passenger’s side too!” Gah!
Pathetic Daughters
Not only am I no help to my mother, I actually steal things from her. This has become an ongoing joke. Once it was a knife, another time it was her bran buds. The list is endless. You see, I bring a basket down with some food we like that mom doesn’t stock and I put it on the kitchen counter, and then I return our food to it – along with items that aren’t mine. It’s accidental shoplifting. Honest!
Pathetic Preachers
I had the wonderful opportunity to preach weekly at All Peoples United Church. This is a place where the ladies still had a sense of “their Sunday best” and would come with their hair beautifully done and in their finest clothes. Me, I’d come tearing in at the last minute with slightly wet bedraggled hair and a blue jean jumper. Thankfully, they were and are a very forgiving congregation.
Pathetic Wife
Laur had ulcers when Anna was about two and I was expectant with Tom. I failed to make an issue of it when he drank coffee and Maalox all day and didn’t eat anything until supper. Not only that, when he got a terrible headache and turned white as a sheet, I just assumed he had a migraine. Turns our Laur had BLEEDING ulcers and needed a few units of blood. My bad!
(Note from my editor: Really?! YOUR fault?! Hmm…your husband sounds pretty pathetic; either that or he’s an academic.)
Pathetic Homemaker
My brother Jim and I once shared an apartment in St. Catharines. Actually, we were just down the street from where Laur and I live now. We took turns cleaning the apartment. I took my turn. A few days later, Jim asked as nicely as he could, “Jan, when were you thinking of cleaning?” My hubs isn’t crazy about how I clean either.
Pathetic Cook
When Laur and I were first married, we had a crock pot and we invited a friend over for supper. Sadly, I had turned the crock pot on low, instead of high. The meal was more than a little crunchy. It never dawned on me that I could have just dumped everything into a pot and boiled it on the stove for ten minutes. Thankfully there was no meat in it. We could have got food poisoning!
*****
Are you pathetic at anything? I’d love to know so I can share it with my hubs. He occasionally has bouts of “buyer’s remorse” and the three day “cooling off” period where you can change your mind has more than long passed. 😊
1. Have you ever won a marathon? The correct answer is “no,” but I did one better. “I have never even entered a marathon.”
2. How pathetic of a runner are you? My answer, “My walking speed is faster than my running speed.”
I was accepted immediately…which got me to thinking. I could set up an empire of these. Here are some examples.
Pathetic Mothers Group
How pathetic are you? Well, when Anna was about Emma’s age, she fell off some climbing bars. She said her arm hurt and we assured her that it was normal and we had her walk home. She was still hurting in the wee hours and Laur took her to emergency. She came back with a cast for a green stick fracture. Oops!
Pathetic Dog Owners
How pathetic? We adopted a retired shih tzu – Trotty – when one of our other dogs Poppyseed was starting to decline. (Fewer than three dogs? Who could live like that?) We put Trotty out to use the bathroom in our fenced in backyard and a few minutes later, when we went to bring him back in, he was GONE! He was found about a mile from our place and brought to a local shih tzu breeder. Thankfully he was tattooed so this breeder called Trotty’s breeder and we were able to get him back. How embarrassing!
Pathetic Car Owners
After buying our latest van, we took it back a day later. Laur was getting AC on his side of the van but I wasn’t. The lad who sold us the van looked at the situation and said, “Oh, you need to turn on the AC for the passenger’s side too!” Gah!
Pathetic Daughters
Not only am I no help to my mother, I actually steal things from her. This has become an ongoing joke. Once it was a knife, another time it was her bran buds. The list is endless. You see, I bring a basket down with some food we like that mom doesn’t stock and I put it on the kitchen counter, and then I return our food to it – along with items that aren’t mine. It’s accidental shoplifting. Honest!
Pathetic Preachers
I had the wonderful opportunity to preach weekly at All Peoples United Church. This is a place where the ladies still had a sense of “their Sunday best” and would come with their hair beautifully done and in their finest clothes. Me, I’d come tearing in at the last minute with slightly wet bedraggled hair and a blue jean jumper. Thankfully, they were and are a very forgiving congregation.
Pathetic Wife
Laur had ulcers when Anna was about two and I was expectant with Tom. I failed to make an issue of it when he drank coffee and Maalox all day and didn’t eat anything until supper. Not only that, when he got a terrible headache and turned white as a sheet, I just assumed he had a migraine. Turns our Laur had BLEEDING ulcers and needed a few units of blood. My bad!
(Note from my editor: Really?! YOUR fault?! Hmm…your husband sounds pretty pathetic; either that or he’s an academic.)
Pathetic Homemaker
My brother Jim and I once shared an apartment in St. Catharines. Actually, we were just down the street from where Laur and I live now. We took turns cleaning the apartment. I took my turn. A few days later, Jim asked as nicely as he could, “Jan, when were you thinking of cleaning?” My hubs isn’t crazy about how I clean either.
Pathetic Cook
When Laur and I were first married, we had a crock pot and we invited a friend over for supper. Sadly, I had turned the crock pot on low, instead of high. The meal was more than a little crunchy. It never dawned on me that I could have just dumped everything into a pot and boiled it on the stove for ten minutes. Thankfully there was no meat in it. We could have got food poisoning!
*****
Are you pathetic at anything? I’d love to know so I can share it with my hubs. He occasionally has bouts of “buyer’s remorse” and the three day “cooling off” period where you can change your mind has more than long passed. 😊