Do you have an extra hour?
If so, I invite you to watch me attempt to put a key on a keychain, an activity that can take a better part of my day, my fingers and my sanity.
I go into it with a positive attitude, convinced that this time I will be successful and adept at sliding the key smoothly into it’s new home. But alas, I end up vainly using random household objects—a butter knife, a pen cap, anything but my teeth (jewels, not tools, people)—to pry open the ring of death and successfully complete this seemingly simple task.
It’s exhausting, which is why I can never move from my house or buy another car, as adding this key on would be entirely more work than it’s worth.
However, every few months I am reminded that there is yet another task so similar in nature that I can’t help but feel they are somehow collaborating to highlight my domestic disabilities—changing the shower curtain liner.
This is a task that must be done on a regular basis, lest one plans on growing an assortment of invasive species in their shower. But like the keychain conundrum, it’s often complicated by a) the ridiculous metal rings that have to be opened and closed and b) the fact that I’m me.
It starts with the purchase of the $5 vinyl liner from Target, simply because I’m fancy, and then the placement of the packaged liner on the counter for at least two weeks while I muster up the motivation to enter into this bathroom battle.
Once I feel sufficiently motivated and occasionally medicated, I pull out the scissors and cut down the old liner. This saves me the work of opening the ridiculously stubborn hooks for at least a few minutes more.
After the old liner is properly discarded though, the real work begins.
With an air of demented determination, I set out to pinch open the bastard hook things as fast as I can, trying to ward of the agonizingly painful feeling of having to hold up my arms for what feels like at least two or three hours.*
*about 10 minutes
Once the rings are all open and I regain the feeling in my separated shoulders and numb arms, I pat myself on the back—it’s good to recognize small victories—and begin hanging up the new liner.
This is a relatively easy part of the process, what with the rings already open, but it never fails that I step into the shower to hang the thing up and step in one random small droplet of water.
If there’s not a helpline for people who step in small droplets of water with clean socks on while changing the shower curtain liner, there needs to be.
Or I could just remember to take off my socks.
At any rate, once the new liner is hung and a second congratulatory break is taken, I set out to pinch shut the bastard hook things as fast as I can, trying to ward of the agonizingly painful feeling of having to hold up my arms for what feels like at least two or three hours.*
*about two or three minutes
When the last hook is snapped, I can exhale, change my socks and take comfort in the fact that I won’t have to do this again for at least a few months. Unless I did it wrong and missed a hook somewhere along the way, in which case I will cry and have an extra hook hanging around for a bit.
Then again, it’s one less hook left to close.
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