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August 01, 2002

Peeling

PeelingsI hate it. It's one of the worst parts of summer, having to peel corn, or "shuck" it as my dad likes to say. What an odd word that is. I hate that word. My dad has a sick obsession for corn over through the summer months when corn on the cob is in season. There've been weeks that he's picked it up every day for dinner. While I think it's good from time to time, it's nothing exceptional and it gets old fast. I'm usually sick of it two weeks into the summer. I swear my dad likes to shop around and try the corn from every freakin' farm in Pennsylvania.

KernelsSurprisingly this summer hasn't been too bad. We've only had it twice this week. But I got the "how 'bout peeling some corn, Phil" the other day. Ugh! Actually, this was the first time I did it this summer. It quickly brought back memories of summers past when I'd be doing the dreadful task. I'd usually pull my sister in to help me. One of the problems I have with it is that those damn stringy things are such a pain to remove. And just like being obsessive-compulsive about the sticker seal on CDs, my corn needs to be damn near perfect with most of the "hairs" removed. Drives me crazy! I'm such a perfectionist about so many things, yet at the same time, I can be so messy and unorganized. In thinking about my obsession with perfection, I remembered when I was little and attended a summer program at the library, we were making these dragons with pieces of ripped green construction paper. We had to glue them inside an outline of a dragon. I remember it being time to go and I wasn't finished. Everyone had left and my mom was there waiting. I was intent on covering every square millimeter of the dragon with this paper. And my pieces of green paper had to be ripped in the perfect shape. My mom joked with the librarian "He's such a perfectionist." Oh, how many times I've heard "It doesn't have to be perfect"! It's just that I like things a certain way, want to complete my plans, want to accomplish my goals, and I take pride in what I do. Is there something wrong with that?

Posted by phil at August 1, 2002 11:55 PM

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