Instant Gratification
Even the words sound wonderful: instant gratification. It means doing something that gives us pleasure immediately. It’s not something you have to work at or for for hours, weeks, or years. It’s something you can do and voila, you’re happy. Even sex isn’t that fast, at least in my experience. It requires some effort and does have to be worked at for at least a few minutes, longer if you’re doing it right. Anyway, it’s not “instant.” “Instant” is good. Instant mashed potatoes, instant breakfast-we even like instant food. “I got a phone call from my daughter, and when I heard her voice, I felt better instantly.” Even microwave ovens aren’t “instant.”
I love mowing the lawn. I find cutting the heads off small green growing things satisfying, and I can instantly see what I’ve accomplished. The grass has to be long enough so that I can easily see where I’ve been but not so long that it drags me down, and I have to mow slowly and push hard. My yard is big enough for a riding mower, but my budget isn’t, and I’m not sure a riding mower would be as satisfying. I’ll take one, though, if anyone offers to give me one.
Ironing. I find ironing gratifying. The more wrinkled the better, depending on the fabric. I have a couple of silk dresses and used to have a metallic shirt that are all probably dry clean only, but I have a theory about dry clean only clothes. If they can’t survive the washing machine, they weren’t meant to live. The washing and drying part aren’t instant, and I have to remember to switch from the washer to the dryer and then remember to take the clothes out of the dryer and fold them and put them away. That’s a lot of work. But to take an iron and instantly smooth the fabric-ahh. That’s immediate, and I can see what I’ve done right away. Then I can hang it up and feel proud (until I find I crowded it too close to the other clothes and wrinkled it up that way.)
Washing a car is instant gratification, but only if I don’t get carried away. If I just hose down the outside, scrub, and rinse, it’s great. If I decide to do the inside, too, that’s too much. And even vacuuming the inside isn’t that much fun. Even with those huge vacuums they have at car washes, there are pieces of hay (must just be old grass, because I don’t hang around with hay) and fur that just won’t come up. To be true instant gratification, the results have to be perfect. Not a blade of grass, not a wrinkle, not anything still stuck in the carpet. Then it’s just instant disappointment.
I always read the last page of a book before I finish it. I always have. If it doesn’t have a happy ending, I’m not reading it. And reading is not instant. It takes time to read a novel, and novels are all I read anymore, other than my e-mail and posts on line. I even read the last page of murder mysteries before I finish the book. Even if I know who done it, I have to read the book to find out how and why and watch all the false leads. I read for pleasure, and I hate disappointment. I get enough of that in real life.
Cooking is not instant gratification for me. I have a daughter-in-law who loves to cook. I mean, she really loves it. She loves searching for and trying new recipes. She knows the names of spices and food stuffs that I’ve never heard of, and she’s willing to take chances and experiment. I hate to cook. There’s too much pressure, too much timing in trying to get everything ready at the same time, and too much room for failure. Things can be overcooked or under-cooked. And you can spend hours preparing a meal that is eaten in minutes, has to be cleaned up after, and the next day is poop. It just doesn’t seem worth the effort to me. Not that I can’t cook. I cooked every meal for my family for years, but I was perfectly happy with a bowl of cereal with blueberries for supper until Dave came and told me no one should live like that. Now he cooks, and I’m fine with that. He seems to enjoy it. I don’t mind baking, especially when the weather gets cold, but I’ve never baked a pie. Mrs. Smith does that so well, I couldn’t improve on it.
I don’t mind cleaning, but I have to be able to see results. I don’t vacuum until I see some actual dirt on the floor or carpet, although with all my pets, vacuuming a floor that looks clean yields enough fur to make a puppy. I can’t see it, but it’s there. My mother used to vacuum and dust on Wednesdays. I vacuum when the floors need it, and I almost never dust. (Ask my daughter. She asked me one day if I ever dust.) My feeling about dusting is that it could be a dead relative visiting (“ashes to ashes, dust to dust,) and I don’t want to Swiffer them into the garbage. That would be disrespectful. I mop when I know I’ll see results. At the moment, many of my floors are just painted concrete. They’ll be tiled when the budget allows.
So instant gratification for me has to be gratification that is instant. If there’s a mess, I clean it up. Instant gratification. If the floors don’t look dirty, I don’t clean them. There would be no gratification, instant or otherwise. And one day soon, I’ll lose the lawn mowing for months, and I will miss it. I won’t have the snow I used to have to shovel, but that wasn’t instant gratification, as it was usually still snowing or would again real soon. Make sure you have something that instantly makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something, that you can look at and see the difference. Cleaning windows is good. Then you can see if the grass needs mowing.
Originally published at http://thefoxmaddoxhomeofhumor.wordpress.com on October 4, 2020.