Sometimes Small Things Ain't So Damn Small

I was a big fan of Where's Waldo. With that in mind, I am going to list three of my many character flaws. I will then describe an event tonight. See how many times the flaws pop up in my behavior.

Confessions:

• I live for structure and predictability
• I frequently focus on "the little stuff"
• I am compulsive

Event:

One of my daily rituals (at least Sunday night through Thursday night) is that I iron my shirt for work the next day. I have done this for years. Dry cleaning is just too expensive....and after a few trips to the cleaners, buttons on my shirts start to crack. so, every night I get the ironing board out, warm up the iron, use some spray starch, and end up with a descent looking shirt.

I usually set the iron to heavy steam. Why???? Why not????? I live how steam and the starch make the front breast pocket look. Nice and crisp. Accents my pocket protector.

Since I like steam, I frequently have to put water into the iron. The iron came with a handy little spouted plastic container to use when filling the iron through its tiny hole. I ALWAYS keep the container in the same place....cabinet between stove and fridge, third shelf up, on the left.

As you can probably guess, tonight the container was not there!!! As I started a slow melt down, Mrs. WHW walked by and told me to simply use a cup, and to stop being a baby. From that point (in chronological order),

1. I considered not ironing tonight and wearing a semi-permanent pressed shirt tomorrow. Couldn't do this....I always iron.
2. I spent about 7.5 minutes looking for the container. No luck.
3. I thought I could unplug the iron, take it over to the sink, and fill it there. Decided it was too hot.
4. Started ironing without water, almost ironing over my hand twice because I continued looking around the kitchen for the container while I ironed.
5. Finished the collar and both sleeves, set the iron on the back of the board, and spent another 7 minutes looking for the container in the same places I had already looked.
6. Finally grabbed a cup, filled it with water, and tried to fill the iron.
7. Spilt over 2/3rds of the water on to the ironing board.
8. Let out a loud "arrrrgggghhh!"
9. Was told to keep it down. Kids were falling asleep.
10. Finished ironing the shirt, which ended up wet from the wet ironing board.

Footnote: As I sit in the dining room typing this I just noticed the container at the other end of the table. I hope a loud clap of thunder rolls up soon.....