The Cubby

 

   I have mastered the art of procrastination. It's all in knowing the difference between things that must be done right now, such as moving out of the way of an oncoming semi, and things that can wait ten, twenty or even thirty years, such as oiling a squeaky hinge. The first example is a matter of life and death. The second falls under aesthetics.

  It helped a lot to learn that each one of us is his or her own little parliament, rather than an absolute ruler. One voice proposes doing a job right now. "Here, here, git 'er done," say seconding voices. A committee meets on ways and means and the issue is tabled until the next meeting. This insight relieved me of a lot of guilt. Now I can blame those idiots on Capitol Hill every time the door squeaks.

  But as the years roll by I start to worry about my legacy. I make a to-do list. When the list goes missing I resolutely make another. Job one: oil squeaky hinge. It proves to be a bigger job than I thought. I refer to YouTube. YouTube is a fascinating place to waste the odd hour. Finally the third video has a solution that works and I wonder why I didn't silence that squeak ten years ago. No matter. The future is bright.

  Job two was to paint the walls of the firewood cubby in our guest house, the Shêdeau. As the Shêdeau came together in 2009-11, we were able to design the interior layout. Shelves for books and knickknacks went under the stairs. There was a triangular shaped area at the bottom of the stairs behind the stove which served perfectly as a cubby for holding a couple of days supply of firewood. It was aesthetically pleasing.

  We had a cart in the storage area that held another four day's supply hauled in from the woodpile. The wood in the cubby looked so nice that I often left it alone for long spells and just carried pieces directly from the cart in the next room to the stove. Getting my steps in. 

  Then came the awful day when Teresa found a little pile of sawdust under the bookshelves. There may have been two piles. Some creature was eating the shelves and in a hundred years or so, maybe less, the shelves would collapse. How were beetles getting into the bookshelves? We ordered a powder that killed this type of beetle (humans too). I mixed up a batch in a spray bottle and after removing the books, etc., I sprayed the shelves, especially the edges where we could see little bore holes. I told Teresa the holes had always been there, but I had no proof. My bad.

  We covered the sprayed area with plastic as seen on YouTube. When the spray dried, a permanent white residue stained parts of the shelves, but the books, etc.when we replaced them hid most of it. It was then that a back bencher in my parliament spoke up. The beetles may be coming in on the firewood, and when the logs sit for long periods in the cubby, the beetles would have time to migrate to the adjacent shelves.

  It was a simple enough solution to stop putting firewood into the cubby. I stuck our attractive kindling container in the empty cubby. But a new problem popped up. It always does. Now the wall of the cubby was exposed to view. Ten plus years of tossing logs into the cubby had marked up the wall. It was not a pretty sight.

  It was time to paint the cubby. I can no longer afford to put things on the back burner. I'm cooking on a camp stove now. A self-help tip I learned is that even if you've decided not to do a job, at least take the first step. How hard could it be to find the paintbrush or the paint. Well it did take awhile to find the can of leftover gray paint, but now the brush and can sat on the bench as daily accusers. In less than a week everything was in readiness to paint the cubby. Drop cloths, paint spattered pants and shirt, even the old comb to clean out the bristles after cleaning the brush were sitting on the bench. I'm thorough if nothing else

  I'm a bit claustrophobic so even a little cubby feels daunting.  During the construction of the Shêdeau we had prepainted all the interior  boards so I was the first person to ever enter the cubby. Our grandchildren would have beat me to it if the cubby hadn't always been full of beetle infested logs. Now I was deep into it like a Neolithic man with his light and his paint. 

  I started with the far wall of the cubby and twisted my body in a clockwise direction as I moved outward. I was thankful I didn't kick the paint can over and I only got a couple of daubs on myself. The actual job took less than an hour. When I reported to Parliament I discovered that august body had recessed for a nap. I joined them.

"If a man says he'll do something, he will do it. There's no need to keep asking him about it every six months." - Anonymous