Today's column has no topic. It has a feeling. The feeling of being
stuck on fast-forward. Are you ready? Good, because there's no time
to waste. In fact, we're running late.
My cultured codependent and I wake up at 5:30 in the morning. Not
naturally, of course. Even roosters don't get up that early. We use
a clock radio tuned to NPR. That way, we can be roused from our
peaceful slumber by breaking news from the global catastrophe of the
moment. Why settle for a simple buzzer when you can hear "the death
toll continues to mount"?
Buoyed by the latest tragic loss of life we bound out of bed and
hit the pavement for our daily exercise. Yes, we walk two miles,
very quickly, in the dark. It's just us and the produce trucks, but
that's okay, because everyone says that walking makes you healthy.
And you need to be really healthy to walk two miles, very quickly, in
the dark, at 5:30 in the morning.
Back at the bunker we take turns showering (9 minutes) and prepare a
nutritious breakfast of fruits and grains. As we enjoy the "most important
meal of the day" (26 minutes), we can't help but feel a little guilty. Most modern
go-getters have managed to cut their morning mealtime down to one
minute by standing over the sink with a protein-laced pop tart. But
a good breakfast is important, so we buck the trend.
We also make time (see breakfast allotment) to read the daily newspaper.
As someone who is paid to pretend to know stuff, I feel duty-bound to
stay informed. But since I know there's no time to tackle anything too
in-depth, I tend to avoid the six-part series on the crumbling
Russian economy and head straight for short articles with headlines
like "Drunken Cow Terrorizes Trailer Park."
Then it's time for the morning commute to work. There are four
different routes and they each take exactly 39 minutes. The timing
only varies if I get stuck behind an (obviously) unemployed person
attempting to drive the speed limit. When this happens, I can't help but feel a
little envious of the stranger's leisurely lifestyle. I also want to
force them off the road into a ditch. But I guess that goes without
saying.
Once at work, I spend the next eight hours in a tiny carpeted box
moving paper clockwise to completion. They call it a "career,"
but that's only because "living hell" didn't test well with focus groups. My co-workers
pretend to care, but I know better. One drop of truth serum and
you'd hear all about the big empty house, the kids they barely
know and the 60" television gathering dust in the media room.
After the evening commute (the morning commute, backwards in the
dark without coffee), we reconvene at home and retrieve the fifty
pounds of vital information wedged into the mailbox. To keep
up, we eat in front of the TV, skimming the growing pile of
magazines and catalogs. I look up, it's Dan Rather. I look down,
it's a Polartec pullover. If I move my head up and down quickly
enough, I can put Dan in the pullover.
Having finished dinner, I am now confronted with what can
roughly be defined as "leisure time." So I promptly assume the
fetal position and watch television. Sort of. What I really do is
stare in the direction of the TV and punch the remote control like a lab rat,
zipping from the Antique Roadshow to the Real World to the Hispanic game shows
and back to PBS before the snooty appraiser lowers the boom on the tea service.
Time for bed! There's a stack of books to read and 18
minutes to read them. If I'm feeling particularly exhausted, I
pass up the bona fide literature and head straight for something
that requires only marginal concentrations, like the latest
issue of Rolling Stone. The only downside is that my dreams
occasionally include a cameo appearance by P. Diddy.
After a few hours of hip hop enriched sleep, it's morning again
("Divers continue to search the twisted wreckage") and time to play
beat the clock all over again. Whee.
I know this fast-forward feeling won't last forever. Until then,
I'll just repeat the mantra that keeps me semi-sane: some people have children,
some people have children . . .
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