A guilty conscience?
Have you ever been in bed, as the clock ticks past 3am, paralysed with guilt because you had promised the kids you’d handcraft them a hammock for their hamsters but instead you spent your time otherwise “recreationally engaged” (at the pub)?
I haven’t. But that’s not because I don’t like the pub. It’s because we never had hamsters.
But perhaps you get my drift.
“A classic of the ‘Over Promise, Under Deliver’ genre is a job often committed to under duress. But a few years of saying stuff like “I’ll do it this weekend” finally catches up with you.”
Welcome, friends, to my tribute to Big Dreams, Harsh Reality.
Where we look at those projects and promises that tragically didn’t quite make it over the start line. The stuff that lived up to my own life mantra: Over promise. Under deliver.
The Man Cave
A tough project this one.
Planning regulations, neighbourly objections and cries of “What are you doing? You better not be building some kind of den, you’re doing the tea, mate” often blight our attempts to carve out this home within a home for men seeking refuge from their responsibilities.
I tried to build one. I had planned it all, I was going to do something with the shed.
Put a bar in.
Hook up a TV.
Stick up a dart board.
I got started, cleared a few things out, made a bit of room. And then I found a camping chair, popped that out, climbed on, and fell asleep.
Turns out that’s all you need to make a Man Cave.
A chair. Job sort of done?
@funnieststandup #SebastianManiscalco ♬ original sound – FunniestStandUp
Doing the Garden
Suffer from greenfingered delusions of grandeur? Me too.
A few years ago I was temporarily out of work and hooked on daytime TV. I fell into a pattern of bingeing Alan Titchmarsh re-runs and BBC Gardeners World.
Runner beans, lawn care and the perfect micro-climate for growing tomatoes: those were the things I cared about.
I felt inspired to bring back to life our own sad patch of grass, so one Friday I grabbed some gloves, a rake and packets of unidentified seeds I got from the shop on the corner and set to work.
Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it looks this garden game. My back went about 12 minutes into leaning on the rake and as the rain began to fall, I thought it best to have a cup of tea.
“The garden will still be there in the morning” I mused. And it’s still there, all these years later. Maybe next year we’ll get round to it?
The Big Loft Sort Out
This is a classic of the Over Promise, Under Deliver genre.
A job often committed to under duress. A few years of saying stuff like “I’ll do it this weekend” finally catching up with you. I get it. I’ve been there.
But this one is fraught with danger. Old Christmas trees, boxes full of old shoes, hoovers from the 1990s. Navigating the loft is a lot like tap dancing through a mine field of memories.
Not all of them good. Still, it’s a great job to get around. You’ll probably remove at most 7 things, before calling it quits because the spider threat level has gone to “critical” and it’s time for a cup of tea anyway.
