A Letter to my unreliable neighbour

Dear Neighbour,

When you asked to park your boat in my driveway for the winter in exchange for shovelling the driveway I was under the impression that you meant that you would shovel my driveway. So far we have had three snowfalls and you have shovelled once, and your work left something to be desired. Shovelling a driveway means taking the snow and moving it off of the driveway, not piling it up in an unorganized fashion, clearing a path to your parked boat, and leaving streaks of snow all over the place.

Also, if you haven't noticed during past winters, we like our driveway clean, like down to the pavement, so people can walk up and down without fear of spraining their ankle or worse. Your work is less than satisfactory and if it continues you will find your boat and its ugly tempo-shelter in the park...

Get it together.

Sincerely,

The person who just spent half an hour fixing your terrible work

A Lesson in Procrastination

Context: My boyfriend's son is in his first year/first semester of CEGEP. The term is ending and lots of assignments are due...

Me: What are you working on?

Damien: It's the final term project.

Me: What's it about?

Damien: Argh... I have to got online and research these political scenarios and fill in the blanks.

Me: (looking at his laptop) Wow! That's a lot of scenarios to complete!

Damien: Yeah, and I have two exams tomorrow too.

Me: (concerned) Really!?! When did they give you this assignment?

Damien: Um... well... like a month ago...

Me: (giving side-eye) Okay... so you left it until the last minute?

Damien: Uh... yes. (bows his head in shame, as he should!)

Me: Okay, I'm going to give you a life lesson Damien. It's about Procrastinating. There are two types of procrastinators, the successful procrastinator and the unsuccessful procrastinator. The successful procrastinator leaves things until the last minute but schedules their time properly in order to get everything done on time and have those things well done. The unsuccessful procrastinator waits until the last minute and gets nothing done on time or in an acceptable manner...

Damien: Okay... (he knows what's coming next)

Me: So, which one are you?

Damien: Uh... the unsuccessful procrastinator?

Me: Exactly. Smarten up.

Good Parenting 101!