Age means nothing to me, mind you.  It’s just a number, nothing more.  When I wake up on December 30, I’ll be 39.  The next day when I get out of bed, I’ll be 40.  How much can change in 24 hours?

     You would think that life would get easier as you age, but not in my world.  Where I live, chaos is the only constant.  Even though I really don’t have all that much to do, I always seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere or do something.  Usually, it’s a 50-50 proposition.  Sometimes I get there and sometimes I don’t.

     I come from a long line of Bartholomay procrastinators.  Certain members of my family are known for being late to everything.  Their bad habit used to frustrate me when I was in my 20s and 30s, but as I approach middle age, it’s just become easier to join the crowd rather than fight the system.

     I don’t like making excuses, but since everyone else does it, I’ll give it a shot.  I’ll have to admit that getting married 15 years ago slowed me down a little bit.  I’ll have to admit it because my wife never will.

     What really throws a wrench into your works is kids.  It’s tough enough when they’re little, packing the diaper bag, loading up the juice jug and filling a plastic bag with crackers, but my kids are 10 and 7 now and it just does not seem to be getting any easier.  Peter and Erin can do more things for themselves now, they just don’t care to do them when you want them to, or any other time, for that matter.

     They can chase each other around the house at 100 miles per hour, knocking over the furniture and scaring the life out the cat, yet it takes them 10 or 15 minutes to put their shoes on and get in the car.  What’s worse is that most of the time in the summer all we’re asking them to do is slip on their sandals.

     And people wonder why I drink.

     My wife does not help matters any.  Denise does not take a long time to get ready to go out somewhere, she just doesn’t get started, and quite frankly, that drives me nuts.

     And if there’s one thing I know about, it’s girls taking a long time to get ready.  I grew up with two sisters, one two-plus years older and one a year younger, in a house with one and half bathrooms in Sheldon.  Life for my brother and I, as you can guess, was not easy.

     My sisters lived in the bathroom.  They got up a 6 a.m. to begin the process of making themselves wonderful and still were late for school at 8:30 a.m. a couple of mornings a week.  My brother and I got up at 8:15 a.m. and were still five minutes early.

     If you did manage to work your way into the bathroom for a shower, it didn’t matter, because there was never any hot water left anyway.  The sink was half-full of water and hair and there were three changes of clothes and four wet bath towels spread out on the floor. 

     In addition, there were two or three curling irons and a blow dryer plugged in and overloading the outlet next to the sink.  My dad got Christmas cards every year signed personally by the CEOs of NSP and Enderlin Rural Water Users.  He must have been their best customer.   All my brother and I ever got were cold showers.

     My wife typically begins her day around 6:30 a.m., and since she is the most wonderful individual in the world already, there isn’t a whole lot she can do to improve.

     That’s OK, though, because it gives her extra time to do the dishes, paint a bathroom, scrub a carpet or two, weed a flower bed and sweep the garage, or the kitchen floor twice, whichever needs it worse.

     What happens, though, is all of her busy work takes her right up to the time she needs to get ready for work, or for church, or to get to the ballgame, wherever we may be headed that particular day, because staying home is just not an option in our lives anymore.

     How she doesn’t get fired, I’ll never know.  Actually, I do know.  She’s the best pharmacist in the world, and her superiors, knowing that, let her slide in the door a little late the three mornings a week she graces them with her presence.

     I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but if I did, one thing I would try to change is being more punctual.  After all, my mom used to say there’s no excuse for being late.

     Mom doesn’t live with Denise, Pete and Erin, though.