Sally Breslin: My Life: AT MY AGE, BURSTS OF ENERGY CAN BE DANGEROUS

I’ve come to the conclusion that when you get to be my age, bursts of energy aren’t a good thing.

Take this Monday, for example. I went to bed at 3 AM and woke up at 7:30 AM. I was going to roll over and go back to sleep, but that's when I remembered it was trash pick-up day.

I am in the habit of waiting until both my recycling container and my trash container are so full before I drag them the 450 feet down my driveway, they are all but guaranteed to cause an injury to one of my essential body parts. That’s because the containers that are provided to the residents by a company called Casella are so large, two full-sized men could climb into just one of them. So the less often I have to deal with those clunkers, the better I like it (but if I ever need a place to hide a couple dead bodies, I’ll be all set).

By the time I dragged the containers down my insanely long, snow-covered driveway, their wheels had collected so much snow, I felt as if I were trying to drag two Sherman tanks. That was when I came to an unexpected obstacle preventing me from getting the containers to their destination. There was a snow bank across the entire width of my driveway where the town had plowed. So I walked back to the garage, grabbed the shovel and set to work clearing the snow bank. Then I put the trash containers out on the edge of the road.

I’d heard on the local weather report that it was going to snow again on Tuesday, so I thought maybe, seeing I already was up and about and feeling energized, I should go shopping and stock up on groceries so I could hibernate the rest of the week.

As I was walking back toward the house, I heard my feathered friends, my “regulars,” squawking and chirping to be fed. The problem was, the snowstorm had covered the area where I usually feed them. So I shoveled a path out to the bird feeder and then cleared an area on the ground so I could throw down some birdseed for my ground feeders, like the three ravens that show up every day…Edgar, Allan and Poe. And while I was out there, I also shoveled off the back deck for the dogs.

Then I came inside, freshened up and headed to Concord to do some shopping. I hit Job Lot first, for their sale on dog treats and birdseed. From there I went to Target for their sale on Poland Spring bottled water, where I picked up 12 gallons (because the water in my well still is loaded with enough arsenic to kill Moby Dick). Of course, the bottled water was located at the farthest end of the store, and I had to push that heavy cart the whole distance back to the register, then out to the car, where I unloaded all 12 gallons into the back seat. Seeing that a gallon of water weighs over eight pounds, it felt like the equivalent of a workout at the gym. I hadn’t even realized I was grunting like an old sow until I noticed other people in the parking lot staring at me.

From there, I headed to Walmart for food, where I bought as much of everything as I could afford so I wouldn’t have to go shopping again for as long as humanly possible. This included, among other things, a 16-lb. bag of dry dog-food, 10 lbs. of flour, 10 lbs. of sugar, three gallons of juice, two 10-lb. bags of potatoes, and a lot of other super heavy items guaranteed to give me multiple hernias while pushing them up and down the aisles and then halfway across the parking lot to my car.

It took me about 145 trips from the car into my house to unload everything – just the 12 bottles of water took me four trips, and another trip alone just for the 16-lb. bag of dog food.

After I put everything away, I decided maybe I should do a couple loads of laundry. While the clothes were washing, I got a craving for homemade sugar cookies, so I baked two dozen, then washed the dishes right away.

That’s when I remembered I had to walk back out to the road and take the trash containers back into the garage, so I did that…in the dark.

When I came back into the house, the dogs greeted me with their toys, wanting to play fetch. So I spent the next half-hour tossing their toys for them. Then I made a pot of soup from scratch and put it on the stove to simmer.

I finally sat down, put my feet up and proceeded to get a bunch of Charley horses in my calves. I vigorously rubbed them until they let up, and then I promptly dozed off. The smoke detector nearest to the kitchen woke me up later because all of the liquid in my soup had boiled out. The house still smells like “Eau de Burnt Potatoes.”

When everything in my body began to spasm later that night, I soaked in a hot bath and once again fell asleep. The “thunk” of the back of my head hitting the wall behind the tub woke me up.

Today, I’m unable to turn my head to the right or lift my arms any higher than my waist because of all of the shoveling, lifting and dragging I did on Monday.

So I’ve decided that the next time I wake up feeling full of energy, I’m going to chalk it up to temporary insanity, roll over and go back to sleep.

My body will thank me for it.