Slack Time

This weekend we have family coming home. It’s homecoming Sunday at the family church. I haven’t been to one in years, but it’s the old-fashioned type church homecoming. Everybody will get there early to catch up and talk for awhile, and then preaching during the morning. Everyone brings food so at lunchtime, there’s a long break and everyone goes outside and eats under the trees and more catching up. When lunch is done and cleaned up, they all go back inside and listen to more preaching. As I said, I haven’t been to one in years and each year Fmom tries to guilt trip me into going, but I always refuse. I call it the family church because my grandparents helped get the most recent incarnation built, plus my aunts, sisters, nieces and nephews have been married there.

Anyway half the family will be here this weekend for the homecoming. So Fmom is using her Fmom code language to let me know to straighten up the house. But I have my secret weapon for the furtherance of the slackerly lifestyle. Whenever I pick something up by Fmom I just let out a groan and set my face is the most horrible of grimaces. She’ll immediately ask me what’s wrong and I’ll innocently say, “Oh nothing, just the back.” She’ll tell me to stop the cleaning right now and go lay down, and I’ll valiantly refuse saying we have family coming home. Another groan, another grimace and then I’ll finally let myself be convinced by her to take a break. OK I admit I’m milking the back situation, but it really does hurt. Of course once it’s better I have to go back to the creative approach for slacking. I’ve said it before - lazy is hard work. You’ve always got someone wanting you to do something. So you have to put a lot of creative thought into the best ways to slack. I’ll always go back to my rule number one though. A little bit of preparation and work at the beginning will usually produce a multitude of slack time later.