Nothing is NOT Acceptable

Last week I was trying to think of a Mother's Day present for my mom. I'm 42 years old now and a macaroni necklace just doesn't have the same impact it used to 36 years ago. I felt like every gift I was thinking of was a crappy gift, so I asked my readers on Facebook to tell me the worst Mother's Day gift they ever received just to make sure those weren't the ones I was considering. I got the usual responses of Dustbusters, brooms, step stools, tools, and irons. However, as I scrolled through the hundreds of answers, I noticed the same gift popping up over and over again.

People Who Complain They're Busy, But They're Busy With Stupid Stuff

Does that title make sense?  I doubt it.  Let's see if I can explain.

OK, so you know those people who complain about how busy they are - but it's not with work or anything really "important"?  It's more like, "Oh gawd, I'm sooooo busy, because Eustace and Duncan and Dorset have Tae Kwon Do on Mondays, baseball practice on Tuesdays, violin and cello on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, soccer all day on Saturdays, baseball for the OTHER team they play for Wednesdays, and Kumon on Fridays."  My head wants to explode just reading that.


A few years ago, before I had any kids, I was showing a house to my client and on the wall of the kitchen the home owners had a schedule with different colors for each kid.  They had four kids and from what I could gather each child participated in 2-3 activities per week and didn't get home from their activities before 9 PM on most nights.  These were elementary and middle school aged kids.  When did they eat dinner?  When did they do their homework?  What time did they finally get to bed?  When did they have time to play with their Ponies and Legos or ride their bikes?