For the last–I don’t know–several years, gophers have been living in my parents’ yard–digging tunnels, making themselves at home, and creating a damn mess of the flower beds. Well, for some reason, today my dad got a burr up his butt, borrowed a wheelbarrow and a shovel from my aunt, and went to war with the gophers. I got wrangled into helping, so for two hours this afternoon my dad and I dismantled a large pile of gopher dirt in the flower bed closest to our front door, and I redistributed the dirt to various holes and ruts in our front and back yards. Dad said, “I’m actually sweating. I don’t even sweat when I go to the gym.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re not losing weight,” I said.

This is how we get along.

Despite working for two hours, we didn’t finish the gopher dirt/flower bed project. Unfortunately, it started raining, and the dirt pile turned to mud. Still, we made a serious dent in things. See the “after” picture below. I didn’t take a “before” picture, but just imagine eight wheelbarrows worth of dirt piled around that crepe myrtle. Seriously, it was like a gopher fort. Anyway, one or two more days like today, and we’ll have it licked. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

This evening I went with friends to see a drag show at a local gay bar. While I was there, a total stranger asked if he could touch my butt. And whereas I appreciated his good taste (I do have a nice butt), I said, “No.” Later I thought maybe I should have let him (I mean, he did ask politely), but then I thought, I’ve been in therapy for five years and have paid a lot of money for my boundaries–I might as well use them. But seriously, what’s the point in learning to say no if you’re not going to do it now and then?

Of course, this incident wasn’t a big deal. Random, maybe a little awkward, but no more difficult than telling a Girl Scout who knocks on my door that I don’t want to buy any of her cookies. (I’m speaking hypothetically, since I rarely turn down a Girl Scout cookie.) But there have been plenty of times in the past when setting boundaries or saying no was a HUGE deal, something that required days or weeks of forethought, a serious conversation, or perhaps a strongly worded letter. Looking back, the longer I’d gone NOT setting boundaries with a particular person, the harder it was when I finally decided to establish them. That’s why the gopher-dirt project this afternoon was such a chore–because we let it go for so long. Had we stayed on top of things as they occurred, it would have been a piece of cake.

Did someone say cake?

My dad mentioned today that those gophers had been persistent, that they were small creatures but had stuck to it. Consequently, they’d made a big damn mess. I imagine this is often the case with things that go awry in our lives. A little thing happens, and we let it go. Fine. But then it’s another little thing, and another little thing. One day what used to be a nice-looking front yard or relationship looks like shit. We think, How did this happen? So we have to go in with a wheelbarrow and shovel and really break a sweat to set things right. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but I’m learning it’s possible to stay on top of things from the beginning, to have boundaries from the start, to say, “No. No, you may not touch my butt.”