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The Rural Voice, 1987-03, Page 10FINANCIAL CENTRE GODERICH 524.2773 1.800-265.5503 Worried about ATRAZINE RESIDUE? Get atrazine test results within 5 days! Send your soil samples to Agri Service Laboratory for atrazine testing. We will call you with your test results within 5 business days of the day we receive your sample — or we will refund your payment! When sending samples, please include: • Your name, address, and postal code • Your telephone number • Clear identification for each sample • Cheque or money order for $50.00 per sample If you have any questions, please call AGR/ SERV/CES �kW3k\OF`l R.R. #1 (Box 155) Breslau, Ontario NOB 1 MO Phone: (519) 742.5811 8 THE RURAL VOICE GETTING BETTER - BY HALVES This is the time of the year when my power take -off screeches to a halt. Super Wrench claims that I have hibernating -bear genes lurking in my background, and a disposition to match. What does he know anyway? I'm getting better, not older — although the things I'm getting better at drive the rest of the family crazy. I'm getting better at buying wall- paper on sale. Getting it on the walls is something else. Every morning I admire the rolls in the corner and think how great the bathroom will look with new paper, and then something more important distracts me, like reading or a nap. Putting on poundage at this time of the year is something else I shine at. I watch the exercises on television, but the preliminary thought of actually bending and stretching tires me out. Super Wrench diligently attends all those endless meetings and sem- inars featured at this time of year. He invites me along, but to go would mean having to do something with the stuff growing wild all over my head and abandoning my favourite stretch pants and flannel shirt. I refuse regret- fully, and hope that he will stay home with me. He doesn't. I then get the urge to phone the police on some trumped-up charge and demand that they shoot the tires out from under his car. Guilt does force me to face the jeans with holes the size of cannon balls in them. I get as far as cutting patches, pinning them on, and ap- proaching the sewing machine when the distraction sets in. Or I pick up the sweater I started three years ago and put another row of ribbing on the bottom band. I now have two of these "sweaters" with ribbing but nothing else, gathering dust. I can get some excitement by leaving the project on Super Wrench's favourite chair. If he sits before looking, I hear outraged bellows and watch him walk funny. My condition, which I call getting "shack nasty," needs the understanding of family members, not their ridicule. But the kids don't help any. It's hard to muster a grin when they leave for the bus and ask for their "barf bags." Well, no one has invented brown -bag lunches that make it an adventure to have lunch. Storing reams of information is another thing I'm getting better at. Recalling information is a different matter. Super Wrench finally called all the local cleaners himself to track down his brown suit. I knew I had taken it someplace, but where had slipped my mind. With four kids who have a social schedule rivalling that of Prince Charles and Lady Di's, it's perfectly understandable that I forget where they are and when they'll be home. The friends who call for them find this hard to swallow, so I just tell them they have the wrong number. Admittedly there are times when the rest of the family gets concerned and tries to cheer me up. For exam- ple, they packed a suitcase for me and left it in the middle of the hall, so I'd be ready to go if a surprise vacation came up. They are positive that the cruise contest on the cereal box will come through. But I'd have to get out of these stretch pants and flannel shirt, and I'm kind of getting attached to the outfit. Something I'm really getting better at, you can see, is rationalizing my short- comings and failures. "Shack nasty" doesn't last long, though, and if there are ambitious, work -oriented women out there, please don't call me. I'll forget what you told me anyway.0 Gisele Ireland, from Bruce County, began her series of humorous col- umns with The Rural Voice. Her most recent book, Brace Yourself, is available for $7 from Bumps Books, Teeswater, Ontario, NOG 2S0.