Call Me Sisyphus

If there was to be a Patron Saint of the Middle Class my vote would be for Sisyphus.

Sisyphus you may or may not know is from Greek mythology. He was sentenced to Tartarus (Hell) and roll a boulder up a hill. When he approached the top the boulder would roll back down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat... you get the idea.

Now I realize I do not have one challenge to do but several Sisyphean tasks.

1. My son's piano lessons. No, it isn't bringing Will to his weekly lesson. That's easy. The hard part is trying to get the lad to develop a sense of time. That consists of me saying one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three or it's variant one-and-two-and-three-and... on and on and on.

2. Dishes. Just today I've done four sink fulls of dishes. Why? The ancient dishwasher that came with the house broke five years ago. Why haven't I got it fixed? This leads us to...

3. Running just to stay in place. I'm not saying it is a conspiracy, but it's a conspiracy. How else does the dryer know that I have some extra money in the checking account and this is just the perfect time to break?

4. Leaves. You may say, "How can leaves be so bad?" This year I did 88 thirty gallon bags of leaves. Not only do I rake/bag repeat, but I have to bring them to the dump (no curbside pickup here) in my compact car. For a moment, I thought I'd actually complete the job. No. Not gonna happen. That hope was cancelled by weather and menial tasks like work and feeding my kids.

And of course...

5. Screenwriting. This is a simple flowchart: Idea-Develop-Write-Edit-Send Out (Many Times)-Rejected (Many Times). At some point you get a new idea and start the cycle over.

Of course there are other candidates for the Patron Saint of the Middle Class such as: St. Jude (Patron Saint of Lost Causes), Bugs Bunny, and Homer Simpson.

You may call me old school, but my heart is with Sisyphus.