Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Relationship between Noise and Effectiveness

Daughter came home and decided maybe she should do some chores that she's been refusing to do. Daughter can be very dramatic, and when she's feeling put upon by my unreasonable insistence that she do some work, she likes to show how much she is suffering by producing sound effects. She decided she would dust and vacuum in the living room.
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With much grunting and groaning, she managed to empty the vacuum cleaner, put it back together, and plug it in. I have discovered there is an inverse relationship between the level of noise she makes while working and the effectiveness of her work. After she spent 10 minutes getting the vacuum cleaner ready to use, she ran it for maybe 20 seconds. I very unreasonably pointed out that wasn't adequate. I also think that one should put the vacuum cleaner away when one is done with it, but then I'm just so unreasonable....
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She also decided she would finish the bathroom she was supposed to clean on Saturday. She told me she was done, but I pointed out she couldn't have done the floor, as she didn't take any cleaning supplies upstairs. She went back upstairs, and then came down and claimed she'd finished it. Being the unreasonable perfectionist that I am, I rejected her work since there was still toothpaste on the counter and blood on the floor. I'm just unreasonable that way.
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When she hasn't been dramatically showing me how hard she is working or telling me how unreasonable I am and how I'm ruining her life, she's been sleeping. I suspect she was fine at the workshop, as I didn't get any phone calls, and if she'd been holding onto walls to stay on her feet and falling asleep whenever she sat down, they'd have called me. I made her an appointment with Therapist for Thursday. She's currently sleeping on the steps. I just heard her grunting and groaning, so I suspect I'm about to hear again how unreasonable I am and how it's all my fault she's in this situation.
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Until she gets some work done, I have custody of her cell phone. She has now accumulated 8 voice mails. She has heard the phone ringing, and every so often I tell her who is calling and how many voice mails she's collected. She's pretty deep in her box, because she's told me I should turn the cell phone off since she won't be getting it back. Have I mentioned how unreasonable I am?

2 comments:

maeve said...

Cell phones are great currency, don't you think? My last custody of the cell phone was five weeks.

I think the dramatic noise-making is a symptom that I've never seen on the list, but it ought to be there. DRAMA, Drama, drama.
Maeve

Reverend Mom said...

I hope I don't have custody of it for 5 weeks! She'd best turn it around before then, or I'll need to be hospitalized.

Who do we contact about adding this symptom?? ;-}