'Like stuffing peanut butter down a straw'

What follows is something I overheard from a woman on a cell phone at the airport. She is apparantly moving out of her house.

"Hello, Jim? It's me. I finally got everything all settled and I'm at the airport. You know, Jim I've been so stressed out lately and taking it out on Jim. Yesterday I was just so upset with him and he knew it. How was he with you? I hope he wasn't upset at you because I was really not nice to him and I hope he didn't take it out on you.

"He left me with the task of taking care of all the animals. That was not fun, Jim. Getting those cats in the cages was like stuffing peanut butter down a straw, Jim. Imagine that you're stuffing peanut butter down a straw. That's what it was like.

"But we finally got everything done. The key is on the back porch under the pumpkin and between those two yellow trays you know?

"Yeah, Jim knew I was upset with him. This whole weekend I hardly said a word to him. You know how he is. Everything is work, work, work. He has to take care of the family, make sure the family is OK, that's what he always says. But on Friday you know what he said to me? He said, 'Sheesh maybe I should have just taken the weekend off and helped you finish up.' And you know what I said to him, Jim? I was so mad I said, 'Well, Jim, that wouldn't be like you at all would it?'"

"Oh, I was so upset with him that...there's this thing the Indians do...and I'm part Indian, did you know that? ...where they scrape the person's body with the back of an oyster shell and dump salt all over them. Well I didn't do that to Jim but I sure wanted to.

"And my kids are no help. They're so lazy. I would have been lucky if they even threw out a blanket for me to lay down on before I went to sleep.

"I started giving away the aquarium equipment to these other kids because I just wanted to get rid of some stuff. But they were lazier than my own kids! I had to keep pushing them and prodding them to get them to take the stuff. It's like, c'mon guys, I'm giving you $200 worth of aquarium stuff you could at least pick up the pace."

"Yeah, I heard it was pretty messy in there. Jim went out and bought a vacuum cleaner. That should have been my first hint of how bad it was if my husband went out and bought a vacuum cleaner.

"What? Oh, I'm sure we had a vacuum cleaner in there somewhere but you know how he is. He probably never used the vacuum cleaner in his life. How would he know where it is?"