I’m a bit of a perfectionist and I love winning. Ever since I was old enough to know what perfect or winner meant, I strove to be the best at anything I did, and I mean anything. When I was a kid, I was determined to excel at everything from running, baking muffins, creating perfect birthday party grab bags, volunteering with seniors, cursive writing and, of course, school.
My go-getter attitude was so intense that Ms. Dear, one of my grade 12 teachers, felt the need to give me the following end of high school advice: “Jenn, sometimes you just gotta say ‘Fuck It!’” I was stunned. There was an audible gasp in the room because she was a teacher and she swore! What was she talking about? “Jenn, you need to learn to pick your battles. You can’t be perfect at everything. Spend your time wisely.”
I wasn’t pleased. What did she know? She was wrong. I could conquer anything and everything. How dare she tell me what to do! I was going to keep doing what I was doing, and I was going to be just fine, thank you very much.
And expecting the best from myself continued to serve me well. I got into the University I wanted to, I lived in my dream city, and had a career in television. Don’t get me wrong, as I got older trying to succeed at everything made life hectic. I was always rushed and didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted, but I was making things happen.
But on a Wednesday night four years ago, my winning attitude got a little out of hand. I’d come home incredibly frustrated after failing to increase my running speed. For weeks I had tried to get faster but nothing was changing. Normally, I would have trained longer that night, but I had an assignment for work due the next morning and I needed to get cracking on it.
I sat down at my desk to get some work done but was craving a salty snack. A big bag of chips in the kitchen cupboard was calling my name, but in addition to trying to master my running speed, I was also trying to only eat healthy, unprocessed, organic food at all times. So, I opted for some organic dill pickles instead.
I opened the fridge, took out the jar, and twisted the lid. Then I twisted the lid again, and again, and again. It wouldn’t open. Goddamn artisanal organic pickle companies and their stupid sturdy lids. No need to worry. This was nothing that wrapping a rubber dish glove around the lid couldn’t fix. This was something that I had mastered as a kid to shut my family up as they made fun of me when I couldn’t open jars. My nickname growing up was Mr. Burns because I was such a weakling.
But there was a problem. We didn’t have any rubber gloves. We didn’t even have elastic bands. It was time for Plan B: butter knife under the lid. I slid it under and no go. How could I not open this? I was the last one who had closed the jar! Expletives flew out of my mouth like a drunken sailor as I tried to rip off the lid. My housemate heard me in the other room and came out.
“Uh, Jenn, do you need a hand with that?”
“No!” I snapped. “But thanks.”
“I mean, you’ve probably loosened it. Maybe you just need one extra push -.”
“I said I’m fine!”
Ten minutes had passed at this point and I didn’t even want the pickles anymore. I just wanted to open the damn jar. I took it off the counter and tried another angle by pressing it into my stomach and thanks to my death grip I heard a squeak. But it didn’t open. The squeak was from my sneakers skidding across the floor.
My hands were throbbing, my throat was parched, and I needed to take five. The indents on my hands from the lid were so deep it looked like I was bleeding. But that wasn’t going to stop me. I was not going to let that 946 mL jar beat me. I was not Mr. Burns. I was not Mr. Burns so help me God! The smiling cartoon pickle on the label stared up at me mockingly.
“Hey Burnsy, you think you can open me with those toothpick arms? Ha!” The pickle’s voice was my dad’s.
The condensation was making the jar harder and harder to hold, and I had to wrap a tea towel around it so it didn’t fly out of my hands. Half of the wrapper had peeled off, but that smug pickle cartoon was still there.
This was God’s way of punishing me for wanting a snack with so much sodium. My hands were cramping up and I had to throw in the towel. I put it back in the fridge and soaked my hands in hot water. It was official: I was Mr. Burns.
Defeated and pissed off, I sulked back to my room to get my work done. The bright white of the blank Word document burned through my tired eyeballs as I tried to formulate a sentence for my assignment. All I could picture was that cartoon pickle in the fridge. Screw it.
I leapt up, made a beeline for the kitchen and whipped out the jar. The lid gave me grief again, but I persisted. Just push through the pain. You are not Mr. Burns. You are not Mr. Burns!
Hallelujah! With a loud watery pop the lid flew off and pickle juice went everywhere. Victory was mine! I slammed the jar onto the table, grabbed a fork, and dug in. Breathlessly, I devoured it and while taking a pause to enjoy it, I saw the mayhem that was my kitchen. It looked like we had been burgled. Drawers were open; cutlery and towels were strewn about; cupboards were open; and chairs were in every direction. Then I looked at the clock. I had battled a pickle jar for 64 minutes. I had mountains of work to do and I was going to be up all night because of a pickle jar.
How was this possible? Sixty-four minutes? I put the kitchen back together and reassessed all the battles I’d fought that day. In the morning I had obsessed over squeezing every last bit of toothpaste out of the tube, at lunch I was in a store and spent way too much time trying to reach something that my 5’2” frame clearly couldn’t reach, and now I had just lost 64 minutes of my life to fermented vegetables. No wonder I was always flustered and exhausted. Ms. Dear was right, I needed to spend my time wisely.
In the wee hours of the morning, I finished my assignment, but before I went to bed, I looked at my day-planner. It looked like I had written a novel. Half of the stuff I didn’t even want to do. I just wanted to prove to myself (and let’s face it, others) that I could do it all. Things needed to change. So, I took my red pen and crossed things out to my heart’s content.
Slowly but surely, I got used to picking my battles. I still catch myself once in a while doing things like focusing too much on making all of my laundry fit into one dryer, packing all the food into one Tupperware container, and wrapping and re-wrapping Christmas presents until there isn’t a single crease in the paper. But things have definitely improved. It’s nice to let go, give yourself a break, and have some breathing room in your life.
I didn’t touch that pickle jar again until a few years later during a mammoth fridge clean out. The lid came off easily, but the pickles had expired.
Comments