Different Drum Humor: Hobby pursuit causes frustration, discontent
“Get a hobby” they said. “It will provide you with hours of enjoyment and relaxation, along with improving your outlook and your life.” Yeah, right.
What terrific advice that would have been from adults as I turned 18, if only I’d elected receiving massages as my hobby. That would have been great! I could have even signed up as a test dummy for a local bodywork school so I could engage in my alleged hobby while helping students earn their credentials. You can’t create a more win-win scenario than that!
Or what if I had simply signed up for the hobbies of the people giving me advice about hobbies? What if I had eagerly adopted playing cards, reading, golfing, fishing, sewing or crocheting?
Through the clearer lens of retrospect, it’s obvious card-playing should have been the hobby I chose for myself. On an equipment basis, alone, cards would hands down be the most affordable pastime a person could undertake. One deck of cards and you’re in business. No special uniform, shoes, headgear, safety goggles, other protective equipment required – at least not to my knowledge. And zero membership fees or club dues.
The most effort required of cards would be rounding up other people to play; or maybe I could just devote myself to becoming a master Solitaire player. Unfortunately, I can sit still only so long with cards in my hand before I need to get up and do something more physically active, like go for a long walk or start a fight with one of the other players. From what I’ve observed, that’s not thought of very highly.
Reading would’ve been the next most affordable hobby – provided a person had free access to reading materials at a public library or lots of medical, dental and hair salon appointments (pre-COVID) where there are lots of things available to read in lobbies. I attempted that route years ago, but my curiosity kept re-routing me from People magazine into obscure books and journals I rarely find anywhere except through special order. So much for reading as an economical avocation.
Golfing and fishing are both too time-consuming and out-of-the way for me at this point in life. I love golfing whenever the opportunity aligns with extra time (which is saying once in a blue moon); however, the sit-still patience fishing requires is neither within my grasp or my life playbook at present juncture. For now, I’ll have to settle for hopeful anticipation that both will figure prominently in my retirement plans.
With sewing, I have so much family garment mending to do (mostly hemming, sock darning, button replacement, seam reinforcement and zipper repair) that there’s no time left to do the fun stuff, such as garment construction and quilting, like I excelled at pre-children. I also used to crochet quite a bit, but again, there aren’t enough hours in the day, after putting out multiple fires, to rekindle that recreational pursuit.
Considering hobby possibilities is starting to feel depressing – as if they are completely outside of my bailiwick. Maybe I need to approach the issue from a completely different point of view, such as when I’ve forgotten the starting date of the season of Lent and had to backtrack and give up something I haven’t done for the past few days in order to claim compliance for the full 40 days. I’m sure I’m not alone in this kind of behavior.
So through some slight sleight-of-hand and verbal manipulation, I am going to re-label as hobbies a few things I already find myself doing regularly, so I can claim I’m engaging in recreation:
SEEK & FIND – Indoor geo-caching where I locate personal items family members have lost, including but not limited to phones, retainers, paychecks, homework and keys.
LAUNDRY LEAGUE – An organized program I’ve been competing in for many years (only on days that end in “Y”) where I’m the stain-removal champion!
REPLACMENT GAME – Eleventh-hour replacement of items such as milk, toilet paper, tape and batteries that nobody reported as depleted or added to the grocery list.
ERRAND-RUNNING – Community-based scavenger hunt undertaken without gas, time or money to support either the quest or item acquisition.
Relaxing hobbies? Hardly! Necessary for survival? Naturally.
Kristy Smith’s Different Drum humor columns are archived at her blog: diffdrum.wordpress.com
This article originally appeared on The Daily Reporter: Opinion
