Today I was supposed to finally pack up the Halloween decorations and put them away for next year. Did I do that? Nope.
I wasn’t goofing off, honestly. Instead, I stripped the bed in the guest room and washed the sheets (they’re still in the dryer), vacuumed the upstairs and took the Hoover downstairs and left it in the front hall so I could get the family room – didn’t get to that yet either. I also reviewed and added my two-cents to a letter being drafted to coax donors to open their wallets to support our local Habitat for Humanity group and reorganized my Gmail accounts to rid my inbox of the conversation format that has confounded me since it imposed itself on me. Just before lunch, I ran to Foodlion to pick up a few items we needed (honestly, how do you run out of peanut butter? ) and then after lunch, baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies. With all this accomplished ( at least partially) I sat down to watch Dr. Phil.
I don’t usually watch daytime television but Tuesday and Wednesday I sat mesmerized by Dr. Phil’s interview with Michelle Knight, one of the young ladies held captive in Cleveland. Her story was both riveting and repulsive. Apparently she was the victim of abuse by her own family long before she was kidnapped. It seems incomprehensible that after such a long history of raw terror and physical abuse that anyone could survive let alone find the grace and courage to share, in graphic detail, her ordeal. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this amazing young woman is her attitude. Despite the years of torture, she has held tightly on to her faith; not blaming God for her fate, but thanking God for her release and opportunity to start over. That is truly amazing. I’m glad I took the time to watch.
This afternoon Dr. Phil’s guests was a man convinced that his wife was cheating on him and his brow-beaten wife who cried and dabbed her eyes with a tissue through the whole show. Their story wasn’t as compelling as that of Michelle Knight, but I found myself unable to look away. The man was for them most part irrational and out of control. The wife had been so emotionally abused that she had abandoned her home and left her twelve-year-old son alone with his father. I don’t know how Dr. Phil will help this couple. The story will continue tomorrow but I’m not so sure I can sit through another hour of it.
I’m not sure this is how people get hooked on these shows, watching one, tuning in the next day for the conclusion and then being enticed to tune in again the next day with tasty previews of the next program. I can see how it could happen. I just don’t think I want to give up another hour when I could finally get that Jack-O-Lantern off the front porch before it’s time to put up my Christmas wreath.