WHO ME, STRESSED?

Kathy Salzberg
Aug 27, 2017 · 3 min read

Stress can make you crazy. It can make your hair fall out, cause memory lapses, make you gain weight and perspire profusely. It can cause crippling phobias, bleeding ulcers, heart arrhythmia and tie your tongue up in knots. Nowadays, people talk about it so much that it’s getting boring. So there’s another one for you: stress can cause boredom, too.

What, exactly, made me stressed back in the day when I was a pet groomer? Maybe it was that regular customer who told me, “Just take your time with Snookums. I don’t want to rush you but I’ll need to pick her up by lunchtime.” Or the fourth phone call from the overprotective lady who wanted to know how Cookie her Cockerpoo was doing. “Does she seem happy? How many times have you taken her out to potty? Did she make poopies or peepee?”

Stress might also have bitten me in the butt when I finally stopped to take an mid-afternoon coffee break, feeling pretty pleased with myself. I started out with six funky furballs this morning and five of them are done, beautiful and beribboned, awaiting their owners. Before I take a sip, the phone jangles with a harried owner who wants to know if his dog is ready yet. Guess which one of the six pooches was his.

It might have been be the plumbing making me a wreck. That tub drain has been slowing down to a trickle and since I’ve got theater tickets for tonight, today’s the day it gave one last gurgle and quits. Seizes up like a frozen pond. Made me wish I had married that groomer’s dreamboat I knew back in high school who grew up to be a Roto-Rooter Man. So what if everyone knew he had a lock on the male lead for the school production of Beauty and the Beast…

Or might my stress source have been be my staff? Margie’s got a sinus infection; Joanie just found out she’s allergic to pet hair and Peggy’s out in the front room showing the UPS man her new tattoo. Or was that clanking crash I just heard the sound of the two-hundred-dollar shears I lent Mary Lou hitting the floor? And I think I just heard the one word every grooming shop owner dreads: “Oops!” Susie stands before me with half a poodle mustache in her hand. “How bad did Mrs. Simpson want this left on Pepi?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have opened my mail. I’ve never claimed to be a math whiz, but that last bank deposit slip was off by $386 — not in my favor. Maybe I should have married that nerdie Class Treasurer who now heads his own CPA firm. So what if he wore his plastic pen pocket protector to the prom…

My daily ration of stress could have come from that over the hill clunker I call a car. I had dropped it off on my way to work for an oil change and the mechanic just called to tell me the transmission is shot. Wonder what ever happened to that classmate with the dirty fingernails whose life’s ambition was to open his own auto repair shop. So what if he left an oil slick wherever he went and the only compliment he ever paid me had something to do with my crankcase… My mom was right. I’ve always been too picky.

Maybe I should have taken up Yoga, cut out caffeine and started bird-watching. I’ve always had good intentions. I bought those tapes about retraining my mind through visualization but in the middle of my vision of a perfect day with all customers, groomers and animals alike engaged in a lovely symphony of harmony and cooperation, the legs on my grooming table buckled and the oldest living poodle in my clientele entered his second puppyhood and made a beeline for the door.

Could it be I was just over-programmed? I had recently heard about an evening course at the Community College on how to manage your time more efficiently. It was advertised in the local paper with these words: “Is your daily workload turning you into a robot? Are you a victim of stress overload? A guilt glutton who postpones pleasure? A worn out workaholic driven to desperation by the punishing pressures of life?”

Did these people know me or what? I figured this might be right up my alley. I promised myself to make a call to sign up later today — if I can find the time to fit it into my schedule.

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Kathy Salzberg

Written by

Kathy Salzberg is a lifelong storyteller, (they called it lying back in grade school) author, retired pet groomer and humorist who is enjoying her retirement.

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