Do not tempt me with a precarious balancing challenge. I will put that hot coffee on top of a downward-slanting notebook in my right hand so fast it will make your head spin. I will sling 100 pounds of groceries over three fingers and under both biceps like a damn ox because I would rather lose a digit and accept my fate — that at least one of those bags will break open, the one that the store clerk told me was too heavy for paper but I was like, “you don’t know my life!” — than actually make two trips. Fuck two trips! I do not have time for two trips. I need to get up these eight million stairs with my eight million groceries in one fell swoop so that I can lay on my bed, procrastinate, pretend to sleep when my roommate comes in just in case he wants something annoying and then wait out the clock until I’m late to something.
Obviously.
I’m a master of making my life harder. I have an advanced degree in it.
Please explain to me why it makes sense to leave the house at 8 when I need to be somewhere at 8? Please explain to me why I do that every single time, knowing that it will cause the following chain reaction:
1) Panic
2) Uber
3) Spending money I don’t have because I’m at the mercy of a surge price
4) Making someone mad
5) Spending more money to make them not mad (“drinks on me, my bad”)
6) Staying out later because I arrived later and it would be rude to dip early
7) Going to bed later than I wanted
8) Waking up tired because of number seven
9) Dragging my ass, arriving late to the gym because of number eight or
10) Getting charged for late canceling
I set these paper chains of bullshit into motion all day long. Sometimes I just stare at my workload and repeat expletives/refresh my inbox/panic/chew a hole through my cheek from anxiety but don’t do anything about it until, oh, seven o-clock at night? Which means canceling something fun to stay and finish.
I have never once experienced a train station as a normal citizen. Never once. I have only ever run through them as though I stole bread from an angry drug lord like pre-wealth Aladdin, sweat flying, duffle bags (packed incoherently and irresponsibly, without underwear or a toothbrush) triggering my trip reflex as they slam into the soft spot behind my knees. Why? Because I get a high from sliding into my seat as doors are closing?
Because I’m addicted to the way Diet Coke feels as it spills all over my lap?
Because I love parking tickets? (In college I was all about a weekly on-campus parking ticket.)
I have no idea. No idea why, or how to stop. Guess I’ll stop when I’m either dead or grow up. Whichever I put off last.
Feature collage by Lily Ross.
