Buried In It

Posted by Nuzzling Muzzles

Part of easing one's stress involves learning from past lessons and adjusting or avoiding the situations that cause stress.  The requires a good memory, which I am definitely lacking.  My day started out good with me having a blank slate, as usual.  I put together my list of goals for the day and the week.  I could not see a single thing on my schedule that should put a kink in my plans.  Then...

...the insanity began.  I noticed that I was low on my prescription anti-anxiety medication.  I called the pharmacy to order a refill only to be told that there was a problem, and I would have to call the doctor's office.  Of course, the receptionist couldn't help me, so she had to take down a message and have the doctor's nurse call me back.  As soon as we hung up, I tensed, knowing I just screwed myself.  I gave the receptionist my home land line number, and not my mobile phone number, so now I had to stay indoors and sit by the phone until the nurse called.  Just great.

Oh well, I tried not to get too stressed out.  Maybe I'd get lucky and the nurse would call within the hour.  The phone rang and I gleefully picked up, only to find that it was an acquaintance who wanted to talk.  She talked for two hours about herself, and as soon as I opened my mouth to respond, she was suddenly too busy to listen and had to go.  We hung up and once again, I realized that I screwed myself.  The nurse was probably trying to get a hold of me during those two hours that I let this lady tie up my phone line with a meaningless conversation that served no benefit to me.  Not only that, but the lady managed to give me several hours of work to do as an assignment before hanging up, as if I didn't already have enough to do.

This is why I normally don't answer the phone.  People only call me when they want something from me.  They take, take, take and rarely give anything in return.  The only reason why I answered was because I thought it was the nurse.  I should have told this other lady right away that I couldn't talk and needed to free up the phone line.

The day continued in that fashion, with the phone ringing and it being everyone but the nurse on the other end of the line, and me coming away from the conversation with more items to add to my To Do List.  I got angry and said, "Screw it!  I'm going outside to clean up the dog poop and horse manure, and the nurse can leave a freakin' message or I'll call her some other day.  I am not going to waste another minute of my time answering this stupid phone."

I started cleaning the horse stalls, thinking I could get that job done in about 15 minutes and then move on to the dog poop, however because I recently added two bales of shavings to each stall, it was taking me closer to 15 minutes per stall to do the job because it was taking forever to shake the shavings out of the fork.  I was feeling frustrated as more time was slipping away from me.  I began mumbling my irritation under my breath until I threw my fork down and blurted out loud, "I cannot believe that one mare can crap this much!  This is outrageous!  I have places to go and things to do."

I finished the first two stalls after half an hour and moved on to my gelding's stall, only to find that I didn't have the strength to lift his massive piles of manure with my fork.  I nearly popped a disk in my spine between my shoulder blades because his poop weighed so much.  I know it takes forever to heal from neck and back injuries, so I had to find some other method for cleaning his stall.

I ended up picking up the piles of poop with my gloved hands and throwing them in the wheelbarrow.  After about twenty handfuls, I just had random turds scattered about in the stall and I dealt with them by digging like a dog in sand, throwing the shavings and turds out the door between my legs.  I knew that once I got them outside on the sand, I could pick them up more easily with the fork, and then return the shavings to the stall.

It must have looked extremely silly to my nosy neighbor, who of course, had to sneak outside to spy on me while I did this, but I was desperate to save time and save my spine.  Each time I came out of the stall to clean up what was in the sand, my nosy neighbor found some other reason to loiter nearby me.  Her buzzing around like a pesky fly annoys me no end, so I went inside the stall where she couldn't watch me and waited for her to leave.  I didn't dare acknowledge her, because it would just lead to more loss, whether it be a loss of time, energy or money, because every time I speak to someone I always end up losing something.

As soon as she thought the show was over, she'd walk to her front door to go inside, and then I would come outside and finish the job I was doing.  I came out prematurely before she shut the door behind her, and she spotted me and turned around to come out and loiter some more.  So, I went back into the barn and waited for her to leave.  This time I waited until she actually shut the front door before I went back outside.  I thought she was gone, and then I looked up to see all three of my horses standing at attention looking into her yard.  The woman had sneaked out the back door, around the side of her house and was hiding behind her car spying on me.  I'm sure she was also standing behind my barn eavesdropping on me when I was complaining about how much my mare shat.

I considered calling out the woman's name and telling her I'm a schizophrenic, and it's best that she not give me more reason to be paranoid, because there's no telling what I'd do.  I grew up next door to a schizophrenic as a child, and that lady could make our lives a nightmare when she was off her medication.  I've also been shot at by a schizophrenic.  So, I figured that kind of threat might make her think twice about being so nosy and intrusive.  But, as usual, I just went back inside my house so that she would go back inside hers.  I left my manure cleaning chore incomplete and headed to the other side of my house to clean up dog poop.

Again, I thought I was alone and noticed one of my dogs taking a series of huge dumps.  I made a comment out loud about it, heard a noise behind me, and turned around to find another neighbor lurking in the bushes eavesdropping and spying on me.  I went in the house and left that chore incomplete as well.  I guess I'll have to come out with a flashlight at midnight if I want some privacy while cleaning my yards.

The day from hell still isn't over, nor has the nurse called.  I want my anti-anxiety medication, please.  Either that or I want everyone to go away and leave me alone.  Either one is fine, but both is better.