Ponderings about Time

Ponderings while Watering Sh_t!

“Honey, can you help me for just 30 minutes this morning?” Thirty minutes is not that long but in husband/man talk it means I have no idea how long it will really take, but I know that as a woman you want a time frame.
So what was the 30 minute “aka” 1 hour project? It was watering horse poop that My Guy had moved from an area horse stable to our farm to use as fertilizer/compost. I remember when he first started working “THE PILE”, he commented, “Stick your hand in it and feel the heat.” Needless to say, I did NOT stick my hand in the pile of poop! I did admit that there was heat being generated. According to My Guy, you have to rotate and water your poop to keep it working to make it a usable product. So that brought us to today, I watered the poop as he relocated the pile with the tractor. Since this appeared to me to be a boring job, I decided to rotate the sprinkler from “FULL” to “SHOWER” which seemed to keep my interest, but according to My Guy, it was not as efficient, so it was “FULL” only, on the spray nozzle. BORING!

While watering, I reflected on the time issue of Men versus Women and I had several revelations. Men really cannot tell women how long for a project since they have a warped sense of time. I remember My Guy saying this will only take 5 minutes to replace the alternator (took 30+). Man says, “This will only take a minute.” Woman’s translation, “This could be a good 20-30 minutes” OR “They have no idea how long and ‘only a minute’ is just bait to get you to help.” The more I thought about it while watering “The Pile”, I realized that it may not be totally man’s poor sense of time, it might, just possibly, be related to women, aka MOM.

How many of you remember as a child being told, “Two minutes ‘til bed time” and it’s really 5-10? Or consider, “You have 5 minutes to get those toys picked up” and Mom gives you 15. As women, we can adjust as we mature, but for guys, they will somehow revert to that early childhood time frame. So as adult men, 5 minutes really means 15. So consider that equation when your man tells you this will only take 1 minute. It will = 15! So, using that equation 1:15 as 5:X = ____. Answer 75 minutes or 1 hour 15 minutes. This may be slightly out of proportion, learn to adjust the equation to your “MAN’s Ratio”!

Just as I thought that I had this “MAN Ratio” formula figured, I remembered a Scripture from Joshua, and realized that God even has a ratio to consider. Do you remember hearing your Mom say, “We will go as soon as I find my keys, or as soon as you pick up your toys or whatever? This comes from Joshua 3:14-16 Contemporary English Bible, “Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan…” Someone pointed out that even though the water stopped “as soon as” it was a great distance away and the 90 miles of up-stream water had to first pass by. That was such an amazing revelation to me. I think of this when I say, “I’ll be ready as soon as I ….”.

So, as soon as I get this blog completed, I will be ready to get to work, give or take 5 minutes (Man Time)! (By the way, I measured “Shower” versus “Full” flow in a coffee can and there was NO difference. Just thought you might want to know.)