So I failed this past weekend. Like hard. But I took away some good lessons from it so I thought I might share what happened.

Warning Hamster central up ahead.

About two weeks ago there was so god awful stench coming from the living room. In order to find it, I put the super smeller to work. I sniffed everything in that room. The big fluffy chair that is on the side of the room. Seemed to be the culprit. I had no clue WTF was coming off that couch but it smelled like a cat barfed then died on it and melted into the fabric. I asked my SO to put it on the porch so that we could toss it the following trash day. He took it out.

We go back to sitting in the room and the smell was still there. Turns out it wasn't the chair. It was a hole that was underneath the chair going straight to the basement where there was a dead animal. YECHHHH. We took care of it. Still. The chair was on the porch.

A couple of days later I go out there and turns out the chair didn't smell anymore. A fresh breeze vacation fixed it. So I asked if he could bring it back in. He said 'yea'. Great. This was two weeks ago.

Friday rolled around and the chair was still there.... eating away at my soul. I could hear it calling me every time I grabbed the mail it stared me in the face. Every time I went to the living room the space where it should be made my heart cringe just a bit more. I was soooooo pissed about this damn chair. Like I don't think about it unless I come across it. It isn't eating away at me constantly. However, when I am reminded of it I get a bit upset that it is two weeks later and he hadn't done it.

I thought I'd reminded him. But now that I look back on it, I was being a bitch about it. I hadn't made it clear that I would prefer the chair to be brought in so it wouldn't be out in the rain anymore. I hadn't made it clear that I would prefer that it be brought in so no animal can burrow into the bottom of it. I hadn't made any of it clear. I just kept pointing out how HE wasn't doing what I asked. How HE forgot.... again. How HE could just do it right now.

Then, I did something. I regret it. I brought it in myself. I should have just let the chair fucking rot outside after all the badgering I'd done over the chair. The chair wasn't worth it. It was a dingy old piece of crap furniture I don't even care about and really wanna replace anyways!

So why the fight?

I spoke with someone about this. I kept saying things like "why can't he just do it right away?" or better "why doesn't he want to help me?" When that came out of my mouth, I felt like such an ass. He has helped me with so much more than just bringing in a fucking chair. Really. He has saved my ass with some MAJOR things and here I am whining and making illogical conclusions with such a small...tiny... insignificant detail.

Lesson of the day

Check your motives.

In this case, it was something that I wanted done immediately. I should have just done it myself. But I was making an excuse for him to be a part of it. I wanted him to do the heavy lifting. For the future, however, I will ask myself the following when asking for a favor:

  1. Do I need this done in a specific way or time?

  2. How important is the outcome of this to me?

  3. Is this something that he should really be doing for me?

  4. If I do feel he can/should help me with this how specific can I get with how to execute the request without micromanaging?

Obviously I'm not going to remember all of this but the lesson remains the same so my mantra will be.

CHECK YOUR MOTIVES!!!!!!!!!!