Filling the Void

I am forever grateful to my family for their constant efforts to ensure that I never face a single moment of boredom, or what other people might call "leisure time."  Sometimes my 50-hour a week job and all my household responsibilities (cooking, cleaning, social planning - lately I identify with each and every servant on Downton Abbey) just don't fill my time sufficiently. 

Laundry Dispersal
Laundry is a key piece of their strategy.  As soon as these people enter our home, they remove their shoes and discard their socks.  I don't mean that they place their socks in the hamper, or even crunch them up inside their shoes, I mean they must toss them high into the air, based on where I later discover these socks - adorning the living room rug, jammed between couch cushions, lying actually inside the printer tray (otherwise known as the source for all paper, so much so that on a recent vacation when I told my daughter to write something on paper, she said, "but there is no printer tray in this hotel room").  This action enables me to spend fully 10 minutes a day gathering and matching up socks.  I am also proud to report these clever people know that leaving the socks in that balled up, half-in/half-out state that preserves foot sweat so effectively consumes extra seconds as I turn them right side out, even if it does cause me to gag just a little bit. 


Needless to say that when any member of my family disrobes, the worn clothing is allowed to drop to the floor right there.  Dirty clothes never make it to the hamper without my assistance.  The only time a piece of apparel is placed in the hamper by the actual wearer is when the item of clothing is not actually in need of laundering; should one of my family members try on and reject an item of clothing, it is never replaced in the drawer. It is instead dropped in the hamper, allowing me to spend significant time washing, drying and folding that item, unworn as it is. 

Total boredom time eliminated: 1 hour

Assignment Amnesia
First, in case you don't have homework-aged kids, I need to tell you that these days homework is a family activity - and not in the way that getting ice cream or visiting Disney is a family activity, more in the way that serving time is a family activity for the members Manson clan.  I can't go into the whys and wherefores, just know that no, that's not how it was when you were a child, and yes, that is how it is now.  Hours of family time are spent nightly scolding, wheedling, and quizzing, all in the name of education. And that is when your child actually remembers to bring home the assignment!

I am thrilled to report that my children recognize homework for what it truly is, a very valuable opportunity to reduce my downtime.  Some nights the workload is minimal and I am in danger of being able to watch Khloe and Lamar (judge me as you must), so in those instances my daughters make sure to leave a book behind, forget a math sheet or entirely misunderstand an assignment. O, the phone calls that follow! O, the faxing! O, the emails! O, the cabs rides back to school!  O, the weeping. 

Total boredom time eliminated: 2 hours

Sisterly Love
Sometimes a couple of free minutes pop up and my family is quick to fill them, lest that aforementioned boredom overtake me.  Both the laundry and homework approaches outlined above require planning, but you can get a rise out of your sister with almost no forethought whatsoever.  All it takes is a quick eye roll and 10 minutes are gone.  Or tell your sister to stop breathing that way and 30 minutes are accounted for.  You can squeeze a full hour out of claiming that your sister is not holding up her end of a complicated trade that involved a book, a DS game, the choice of which iCarly show would be viewed the night before, and three jelly munchkins. 

Total boredom time eliminated: 10 minutes to 7 hours

Bringing Home the Cookie Dough

I know I have a glamorous and important job, and I know you are secretly jealous.  I get to use fancy phrases like "value added," fly to exotic cities like Cleveland, and generally save the world with my synergistic approach to work plan execution.  Also, I use pivot tables! But at times the responsibilities of this career can weigh heavily on my shoulders and it is at those times that I consider making a career change.  It is hard to imagine a career as value added as this one (see!), but one I have been quietly pondering is a career in the field of chocolate chip cookie tasting.


I only learned of this option when my friend Alisa, a Harvard-educated corporate litigator, told me she aspires to be a member of this profession.  I know, on the surface it doesn't sound like a job that adds value to society, but let's give this some thought.  Chocolate chip cookies play a very important role in modern society.  Unappreciated day at work running down unexpected charges to your budget code, which entails contacting people you don't know to ask them with whom they went to lunch and what they discussed over that lunch? Fix it with a chocolate chip cookie.  Unappreciated night at home reteaching yourself 9th grade algebra, only to find there was a typo in the math problem you worked hard on and even pestered both your neighbor and your cousin for help? Break out the Nestle's Tollhouse.  Unappreciated late evening trying unsuccessfully to tell the American Airlines award desk AGAIN how to spell your daughter's name correctly so that she can actually redeem her lifetime of frequent flyer miles, 17,000 of which have mysteriously disappeared already? Crunch down on a chocolate chipper.  Suddenly the frustration of your day melts away - the cookie almost literally is patting you soothingly (on the inside your mouth, of course) whispering, "Don't listen to these unappreciative clods! You are smart, pretty, hardworking and truly deserved to get the lead role in the 8th grade play that went to that smug Reagan, although of course you have moved beyond that crushing disappointment as you are a fully actualized and secure woman."


Imagine, instead, if in any of these instances when you bite down, you get a sub par cookie!  A cookie with the wrong ratio of cookie to chip.  A chip that is too sweet - or worse, too bitter!  A cookie that is rock hard.  Far from helping you cope with your difficult situation, such a cookie only adds to the frustration and anger you are already feeling, and the world is a worse place for it.  Perhaps it is just such an experience that let the woman behind me on the train the other morning to karate chop me in the back of the head when the only offense I may have committed was swinging my hair. (Note I did not actually condemn the assault - in fact I actually feel some respect for it and am just trying to understand how the woman reached the decision to take that particular action against me so that I may employ that same rationale to a similar situation myself, should one arise.  Which it will.)


Is it really that much of a stretch to say that many of the world's worst conflicts might never have happened if there had been some really good chocolate chip cookies around to soothe the opponents as the issues escalated?  Ok, it is completely a huge stretch, but it would still be the most awesomely delicious job ever.