Sixteen years ago – when my children were actually children – their needs defined the rhythm of my life.

6:00am — Realizing that he had only moments to be out of bed before the sun cleared the horizon, my two-year old jumped up and announced, “Is time ‘a get up now!”

6:10am — Frantic that mommy and daddy weren’t immediately fully conscious and dressed, the two-year old enlisted the aid of his infant brother by rocking the cradle violently until the baby started to cry.  This made the two-year old cry.

6:12am — With both children going at full volume, my wife and I had no choice but to get up.

6:30am – About that time, the alarm went off indicating that it was time to start another fun-filled day at the Cummings household.

6:35am — I showered, shaved, dressed for work, fed the cat, fed the fish, emptied the dishwasher, made orange juice for everyone, and ate breakfast.  By contrast, my wife took both children downstairs.  Looking back, I realize it wasn’t a fair division of labor, but so long as  my wife let me get away with the easy part, I kept doing it.

7:15am — Being the craven coward that I was, I sneaked off to my office, leaving my wife home with the kids.

7:30am — Sesame Street came on PBS and the two-year old turned into a root vegetable.

8:35am — My wife dressed the children.  After helping the two-year old get his head through the neck of his tee-shirt rather than the sleeve, she turned her attention to the infant.  As soon as that was done, the two-year old announced, “I have to go potty.”

When that was done, the infant spat up on his clothes and needed to be changed.  By then the two-year old had gotten dirty and needed cleaned up.  This cycle repeated for most of the morning.

10:00am — After giving the infant his mid-morning meal, my wife picked up the toys on the living room floor.  In the meantime, the two-year old went upstairs and removed the remainder of his toys from his closet.  While my wife cleaned his room, he scattered toys in the living room.

11:40am — Lunch time!  The negotiations which preceded lunch at my house made a meeting of the U.N. Security Council look like a ladies sewing circle.  The two-year old wanted Twinkies and chocolate milk.  My wife, being firmly convinced that very few Olympic athletes grew up eating junk food, insisted on something healthier like cottage cheese and fruit.  With the basic offers on the table, the real bargaining began.  The two-year old agreed to the fruit, but not the cottage cheese.  My wife countered with a half-Twinkie for dessert in exchange for a clean plate.  Eventually she won by virtue of her superior authority as the Mommy.

12:30pm to 3:00pm — Nap Time.  For the two-and-a-half hours of nap, the house was silent.  The infant was asleep — resting so he’d be ready to stay up all night.  The two-year old was quiet because he knew better than to disturb Mommy during her nap.

3:00pm — After waking everybody, feeding the infant, taking the two-year old potty, and dressing both kids in play clothes, my wife was at last ready to start her day’s work.
5:00pm — I arrived home, refreshed and relaxed after spending a day at the office.  At this point, my wife and I argued over which of us got to cook dinner.  It was a hard fought argument because the loser got to take care of the kids.

7:00pm — Bed Time.  Putting the two-year old to bed was an hour-long process.   It entailed bathing, putting on pj’s, reading lots of stories, and carting approximately three gallons of water from the bathroom to the bedroom…one glass at a time.

8:00pm — With the two-year old more-or-less asleep and the infant happily cooing to a plastic Mickey Mouse doll, my wife and I had a few moments for ourselves.  Before we had kids, we spent our evenings reading books, or discussing politics, or even just cuddling.  After parenthood we sat and stared at the T.V. like psychiatric patients who’d had too much electroshock therapy.  We dreamed of how much easier life would be when the kids were older and could take more care of themselves.

Pity us.  We were foolish and delusional.

Our sons are both in high school now and our schedule is measured in days, rather than hours.  Coordinating family activities begins to resemble planning a major military operation.
“I’ll be late tonight,” our youngest son says.

“Play practice?” I ask.

“Math club.  Practice is on Wednesday.”

“I thought Wednesday was student council.”

“No,” says our eldest.  “Student council is on alternate Thursdays.”

“What does it alternate with?”

“Debate.”  (The years of negotiating lunch menus permanently warped him and debate is a socially acceptable outlet for his argumentative tendencies.)

“Friday?” I ask.

“School dance,” they answer in unison.

“Saturday?”

“They’re both working that day, dear,” my wife says.

Now I’m totally confused.  It’s entirely possible that I should be preparing for a debate meet or memorizing lines for the play.  I ask, “Am I working Saturday?”
“Yes,” my wife says. “I have a list of things for you to do around the house.”

“Okay,” I say knowing it’ll be a long list.  I think my wife is paying me back for all the years I left her alone with the kids.  I don’t complain, though, because she has the schedule under control.  And, I think scheduling will get easier in a few years when we have grandkids.

Good. Luck.

Really.

Our conversations are non-linear in the same way that tires are non-square, fish are non-mammals, and beefsteak tomatoes are non-meat. For example, imagine that I wanted to tell my wife I’d set up an appointment to have the lawn-chemical warfare guys spray the foundation for bugs.

I pay them to do this every Fall even though I’m not convinced it actually works. For all I know the big hose on their truck is actually connected to a tank filled with leftover cologne that stores couldn’t unload on Father’s Day. If I got down close and sniffed, my house might smell of off-brand aftershave like Old Splice, Tommy Hilfinger, or Huge Old Boss. It might repel the bugs for the same reason these scents repel anyone over the age of eight. Or maybe there never were any bugs to begin with. Or there might be a huge army of bugs massed on the far side of the fence just waiting for the year that I forget to tell my wife the be ready to let the lawn-chemical warfare guys into the backyard. That’s why it’s vitally important for me to call her and tell her to expect them promptly between nine and three tomorrow.

In any kind of rational universe, I’d dial her number and say, “Honey, please hang around the house for six hours waiting for the lawn guys to come by with their truck to spray the foundation.” You might think I’d be more effective if I waited to speak until after she picked up the phone. Surprisingly, that’s not the case.

She’ll answer and say, “Oh, I was just thinking about you.”

“Really? Anything in particular?”

“Yeah. I was thinking I’d like you to stop at the store. We’re almost out of coffee creamer. You know the kind I like…that foreign one.”

“French Vanilla?”

“No. That other one.”

“Irish Cream?”

“No. You know. The one I always get.”

“English toffee?”

“Yeah! The foreign one.”

We’ll spend the next ten minutes going over the minutia of household management until we find ourselves at the obligatory I-love-yous and hang up. Much later, while I’m staring at the dairy case trying to remember whether she wanted the Belgian Chocolate or the Crème Brulee creamer, I’ll realize I forgot to mention the foundation spraying appointment. So, I’ll call her again, rationalizing that I have to repeat the whole “foreign creamer” conversation anyway. At this point, the odds are fifty-fifty that I’ll remember the appointment. Scientists at the Cummings Imaginary Scientific Studies Institute (pronounced “sissy”) have a name for this phenomenon. They call it the “Preferred Outcome Obfuscation Field” or POOF for short.

The POOF is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

Oh. Wait. That’s the Force.

The POOF is much more devious. It’s what gets in your way and keeps you from accomplishing your goals; sort of like if the Force had a clumsy kid brother. You can’t avoid it and you can’t ditch it.

Consider this actual example from your own personal life. Think about the last time you tried mowing the lawn. No big deal, right? You’ve got the lawn, you’ve got the mower, you’ve got the gas. You did remember the gas … didn’t you? After last time you mowed, it was a little low and you were going to refill it, right? No sweat. You just need to drive to the gas station and fill the gas can. All you’ve got to do is find you car keys which are … ? Now where did they go? Did they get left in the slacks you dropped off at the cleaner’s? No. You wouldn’t have been able to drive home. So where did they go?

You see? It started out as a simple, straightforward chore and — POOF! — six hours later you’re digging through the recycling bin hoping to find your keys and wondering where all the of diet soda cans are coming from since it’s just two of you in the house now and neither of you drinks diet soda.

Or is that just me?

If the POOF was a small, localized phenomenon like a dust devil it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Unfortunately, it’s bigger than that. The POOF rolls over your whole life rearranging your plans the way a tornado re-arranges a cornfield.

In high school, I suffered from the illusion that I wanted to study medicine. Then I realized — POOF! — the sight of blood made me woozy and since blood was a major part of medicine I might be better off in a less body-fluid intensive field. The POOF wasn’t done with me yet, though. It swirled me right into Elementary Education which has a surprisingly high body-fluid quotient, but gets none of the respect of medical practice.

That same teenaged version of myself entertained fantasies of fast cars and supermodels. POOF! My college self graduated with a rattletrap Ford Granada that didn’t last and a loving marriage that has. (Once in a great while you luck out with the POOF!)

As new parents we dreamed of raising our children surrounded by art and culture and sophistication. We planned to expose them to the great museums and cultural landmarks of the world. Then … POOF! We had to trade the travel and culture budget for pediatric visits and school clothes and a staggering quantity of Pokemon and Star Wars school supplies and lunch boxes.

Now, the boys are starting their own lives and — POOF!– we’re empty-nesters; watching from a distance while our sons learn about POOF! for themselves.

I like to think of myself as an easy-going guy; relaxed, laid-back, and fun to be around. I’d actually be like that if I just didn’t have to deal with other people. Some people have bad joints that flare up in rainy weather. Others have sciatica that troubles them when it’s damp. Me? I have a streak of crankiness that comes on strong when people annoy me.

Like all of the blind people who have driver’s licenses.

Really.

I’ll be tooling along, rocking-out to some lost hit from my youth like Peter Schilling’s Coming Home (and hoping that nobody in the other cars can lip read) when some moron will try to change into my lane WHILE I’M STILL USING IT!

I don’t mind sharing the lane…as soon as I’m finished with it. I’m just not too keen on trying to get two cars to occupy the same space at the same time. You see what I mean? The other guy must be blind.

At least, I hope he is. Otherwise he might have seen me singing that awful song. In truth, though, I know such drivers aren’t really blind. Generally, the DMV is reluctant to issue licenses to people who come in with guide dogs.

So the other guy must just be self-centered.

Like when he drives across all of the lines in a parking lot instead of following the arrows and signs and going up-and-down the rows the way they were intended to be used. Watching him skim toward the exit while I follow the rules sets off a crankiness attack and I want to shake him by the lapels and say, “Hey Mr. Jerkface Road Warrior! Somebody worked hard to paint those lines and you just completely drove over their work. Would you drive over a painting like the Mona Lisa? The Guernica? The Sistine Chapel Ceiling? I think not.”

Of course, since we’re both in our cars, grabbing his lapels is impractical. So, I’m reduced to expressing myself via hand gestures. He probably missed the Picasso and Michaelangelo references, but I think he got the main point.

Sometimes I’m fortunate enough to be face-to-face with this guy like when I’m in the grocery store and he cuts me off at the checkout stand. No need for gestures then! No sir. I can walk right up to him and express my displeasure.

Only, in person, he’s kind of big and intimidating and my instinct for self-preservation wins out over my crankiness every time.

Cranky outbursts cannot be denied, only delayed. After leaving the store (in the safety of my car) I let out my pent up frustration by ranting at the people on the radio. Poor Scott Simon never knew what hit him.

When I let go with an outburst at home, my wife suggests that a “time out” might be a good idea. She just doesn’t understand that it’s not my fault when I get frustrated about one of the many significant problems with modern life … like that thing about the phones.

The number of cordless phones in our house exceeds the number of ears by a ratio of approximately eighteen-to-one. Each handset has a matching base on which it must rest periodically for the battery to recharge. This seems to me to be a simple concept, yet at no time are all of the handsets on their bases. In fact, it appears that the handsets are terrified to be in the same room as the bases. When I want to make an outbound telephone call, I have to prowl around hunting for a handset with a battery that isn’t completely drained. Sometimes, just to mock me, a handset will mimic having a charge until just after the point when the other person says, “Hello”. Then it dies, leaving me disconnected and frustrated.

I have conducted extensive handset/base alignment seminars for my family. I have shown them the pretty lights that illuminate to indicate the phone is charging. You’d think that by now I’d come home … just once … to find a house where the phones are plugged in and charged; a place where a fellow could dial out for a pizza whenever he wanted; a residence where calling nine-one-one in an emergency was actually a viable option.

When the cranky gene kicks in and I get a good rant going, my wife’s personal condition — “good manners” I think she calls it — kicks in and she banishes me to some other room in the house until I can “behave like a mature human being”. Any attempts to dissuade her are met with a stern expression and a pointed finger.

I’ve learned from all of this and I no longer rabbit on about things like kitchen drawers left open, cabinets that are never closed, minuscule slivers of Ivory left in the soap dish like offerings to the shower gods in hopes of magically getting a new bar, messy globs of toothpaste accumulating on the bathroom sink, and not getting the comics first when the newspaper comes in the morning. Poor Scott Simon takes a lot of abuse after I leave the house, though.

The fundamental problem here is that life doesn’t meet my expectations and people are thoughtless and selfish. They don’t care about others the way I do. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.

If I were in charge, there’d be no worry of an outbreak of crankiness. I’d ensure that people were consistently thoughtful and polite by expanding the powers of the legal system to include immediate and permanent incarceration as a penalty for things like letting grocery carts roll around the parking lot where they might collide with my car and ding the paint. And…I guess…maybe…the same protection could be extended to your car… too. If you really think it’s that important.  

You see what I mean?

Years of excessive mental stimulation have left my attention span so withered it can’t hold any one idea for more than fifteen seconds. Even if I suffered from the illusion that I was qualified to write about the fiscal crisis, I’d have to start by doing research which would probably mean using the internet which would mean in about twenty-minutes you’d find me watching YouTube and singing along with the video of 99 Red Balloons.

Really.

It’s not like I want to be distracted, it’s just that the internet is the worlds biggest busy box for grown-ups. There’s plenty of information about U.S. fiscal policy on the web, but most of the articles are full of words and concepts and charts and graphs and frankly I’m not that interested. Besides, there are plenty of more interesting things on the web…like blogs and podcasts and chat and web games and web comics and the WMD — the weapon of mass distraction — e-mail.

Fortunately, I can avoid all of those distractions by turning away from the computer … just as soon as I check my e-mail one last time.

Unfortunately, the world outside of the computer has other charms for beguiling away my attention; charms like television.

In the old three-networks-and-maybe-PBS days television was barely a diversion. With one-hundred-plus digital channels, TV has become a full-blown distraction. As a kid, it only took two minutes to flip through the four available channels and decide there was nothing worth watching. On my satellite receiver I have to scroll through pages and pages of titles and descriptions, consider the likeliest candidates, reject them and move on before I’m satisfied that there’s nothing worth watching. Selecting a program to watch has taken on a level of complexity normally associated with choosing a dissertation topic in a doctoral program.

Once I’ve settled on a program, I always seem to come in during the commercial. Which, let’s be honest, is just a more artful form of distraction. The point of advertising is to divert our attention from a product’s flaws and focus it on the product’s virtues. So, instead of mentioning the negatives of a particular model of car (it has an unfortunate tendency to roll and explode when cornering too quickly) the soothing voice-over points out exciting new features (now with go-faster stripes!) If the advertiser does their job right, we’ll all rush out and dash past the burning heaps of motor vehicle wreckage just so we can buy our very own automotive death-trap.

When it comes to the artful dodge, though, Marketers have nothing on politicians.

Any time a politician is in hot water, you can bet that they’ll bravely champion some motherhood-and-apple-pie cause that nobody could possibly be against. Suppose, for example, that the local mayor is in deep trouble for gross misuse of public funds in an incident involving off-track betting and a steroid-infused horse named His Honor. Any decently ashamed person would go into hiding, but his honor (the mayor, not the horse) will most likely dedicate a new park, veterans monument, or public restroom; anything to remind the voters that he’s really a great guy.

Things only get worse during election season. Politicians try to distract the electorate from their own flaws by finger-pointing at their opponents. If the campaign runs for any length of time, the voters are so keenly aware of both candidate’s failings that they begin to wonder what point there is in voting for either of them.

You can’t really blame the politicians; and even if you did they’d just say something nasty about you in return. We all learn the art of distraction at a very young age. Watch any parent with a toddler and you’ll see a marathon cat-and-mouse distraction game.

Toddlers love to explore their world. They love to learn, to experience life, to interact with everything around them. And, by interact, I mean eat things. Other than actual nutritious food, there is nothing a toddler won’t try to stuff in their mouth.

Parents have two choices; straight-jacket their offspring or continually offer them something more interesting to eat. If your two-year-old picks up a penny and examines it with the care of a wine connoisseur contemplating a ’42 Bordeaux, all you can do is grab their attention with a cookie or wish the penny a pleasant journey. The kids figure this out pretty quick and start trying to eat everything in sight to get you to part with more cookies.

My wife uses a variation of the technique on me. I’ll be settled in reading the newspaper; enlarging my brain with some vital section like the comics and my wife will lean in close. Her warm breath on the nape of my neck cranks my nervous system up to eleven and I find I no longer care what the Family Circus kids are thinking. I’m fully distracted and highly suggestible when my wife utters those special words, “Empty the dishwasher.”

The 50,000 volt hum from my nervous system usually keeps me diverted long enough to finish the job before I realize I’ve been tricked.

The trouble with all of these distractions, is that they keep me from achieving my full potential. Every minute I’m distracted is a minute I’m not working on something more important like a stirring speech, a beautiful symphony, or the script for my TV pilot. All I really need to do is discipline myself and get to work.

And I will…just as soon as I check my e-mail.

The pioneers had a hard life. They had to deal with floods, fires, famines, and even the occasional wild animal. On the other hand, they didn’t have to worry about “Modern Conveniences.”

I spend about three hours a day dealing with the problems created by my convenient, high-tech appliances. It starts the minute I get up and put breakfast in the microwave. In the good old, pre-microwave days, I wouldn’t have even dared attempt a hot breakfast. I can only make eggs two ways–black or blacker. (Black is my favorite, it matches my toast.)

The microwave seduces me, though. It says, “I know you can cook in me. Any idiot can cook with a microwave. Just open the freezer and take out a package of ‘Bright and Chipper’ low-cholesterol, imitation eggs with strips of real-meat bacon and put it in me. Two minutes and you’re done.”

Even though I know better, I’m convinced that this time I’ll get it right. I peel off the plastic wrap, put the cardboard tray in the microwave, press the buttons and read the headlines while I wait. The microwave beeps politely to tell me it’s done. I take out the tray and discover that my food has become one with the tray. In fact, except for a couple of vaguely bacon-shaped lumps, the tray looks completely empty.

It’s not just my microwave. Nearly every machine I use has an attitude. It must have something to do with computers. As soon as we started building machines which were as intelligent as the average management consultant, they started to get uppity. (The machines, not the consultants.)

A prime example is the InstaTeller machine at my bank. It is obsessed with something called “sufficient funds.” Apparently the worst sin in the InstaTeller’s religion is failure to have “sufficient funds.”

The machine is also annoyingly literal-minded. If I push the button to withdraw $5, it gives me $5. It doesn’t care that I really wanted $50. If I enter the wrong PIN number it eats my card and I have to talk to the InstaTeller lady at the bank. The only thing worse than dealing with the machine is talking to the lady. The machine is difficult and petty minded, but at least it doesn’t look like my first-grade teacher.

“Uh…I forgot the PIN again,” I say, imagining that the lady is about fifteen feet taller than I am and armed with a six-foot-long wooden yardstick. “I need my card back,” I explain.

“You know the machine will be very upset with you,” she says.

That’s the root of the problem, I think. Machines act like they have actual feelings. They want to be valued as individuals and recognized for their worthwhile contributions to the organization. If they could talk, they’d probably request pension plans and retirement ceremonies with gold watches and sappy testimonials. Most of all, they don’t want to be forgotten.

Which is why my fire alarm which occasionally interrupts my sleep with a plaintive electronic chirp. It just wants me to know that it’s still working no matter how rarely I think of it and it really isn’t upset that I never tell it what a good job it’s doing. Really. Honestly. It doesn’t mind a bit. Chirp! Sigh.

Actually, even my simple, non-computerized machines are getting in on the act. My lawnmower is getting a little long in the tooth. I’ve had it for nearly a decade which is seventy in lawn-mower years. Yanking on the pull-start has been getting a little harder and it coughs a bit when it first gets going. Something is clogged in the fuel line and the engine occasionally skips a beat. Lately those skipped beats have gotten more frequent. Last week it skipped so hard it stopped entirely.

I’d just finished mowing the east half of the lawn, when the motor gave out. My attempts at small-engine CPR (which mostly involved pushing the primer, yanking the cord, and swearing) failed. The motor would give a brief, hopeful roarrr and then die again. To avoid the humiliation of a bi-level lawn, I dug out our old mechanical push mower and finished the job. I hope the power mower knows just how hard I worked.

Except I can’t shake the feeling that it stopped running just so I’d know how hard it had been working.

For sheer petty mindedness, though, nothing can beat a car. We tend to think of our vehicles as monolithic entities, each a single, large machine. In fact, a car is a whole bunch of individual machines which are designed to work cooperatively and harmoniously in the manner of a boy band or a political party.

The air-conditioning is a separate machine from the transmission which is a separate machine from the power steering which is a separate machine from the CD player which is a separate machine from the engine. If the transmission says something annoying to the catalytic converter, both of them can shut down just to prove how important they are. If the components of my minivan ever get into a major snit with each other, I could find myself stranded by the side of the road a zillion miles from anywhere.

Which is why I try very hard to be courteous and respectful to all of the machines in my life.

The other day I read an article about a fast-food chain which actually wants to replace it’s clerks with machines. Instead of buying the daily cholesterol special from some minimum wage worker, you’ll have to order it from a less-than-minimum-wage machine. You’ll pay the machine and you’ll have to tell the machine that, “If I had wanted fries with that I would have ordered fries with that.” I wonder though, if the clerk machine gets lonely, will it start an affair with the deep-fat fryer?

And it’s not just work.

My “free time” — which is only free in the sense that I don’t get paid for what I do during those hours — is filled with engagements and obligations and errands … all of which absorb my time the way the blob absorbed most of Steve McQueen’s hometown.

The only way to keep up is to do everything with the feverish intensity of an espresso-fueled chipmunk.

Which is why the sign about the Meditation Course intrigued me so much.  I flashed past it so quickly I had to come around the block a second time just to get the details.  A whole course about mediation, about learning to relax and breathe and just … be.  It sounded delightful until I realized that I’d probably approach it with the same manic intensity I applied to everything else.

“And breathe in…” the instructor would say.

After a short, sharp inhalation which would probably sound like I’d been unexpectedly kicked in the gut, I’d look up at her and say, “Got it.  What’s next?”

Not a good way to relax.

I know I’d be like that, though, because I can’t even properly relax when I’m going on vacation.  After all, I’m an American and the statistics show that we have about a third less paid time off than our European cousins.  If we’re going to keep up with them in the highly competitive field of collecting tacky tourist souvenirs, we’re just going to have to try about fifty percent harder.

A proper vacation, for me, is planned with the detail and precision of a military incursion into unfriendly territory or a highly complex bank robbery.

The actual planning starts months in advance with a trip to the bookstore to pick up thick tomes with titles like “Yellowstone: Two Million Acres in Twenty-Four Hours” or “Rapid Touring: New York, Boston, Chicago and a City to be Named Later”.  These books are chock full of tips on how to travel efficiently; all drawn from the authors’ years of experience at sitting in office writing about travel.  The point, though, is that they tell you how to wring every last drop of fun out of your vacation the same way an anaconda squeezes the life out of a jaguar.

Using the books as a guide, I plot out our trip.  By carefully sticking to what I’ve planned, in just two or three hours my entire family can be completely ready to strangle me.

Consider our trip to a major, west-coast amusement facility.  To avoid any legal entanglements, I’ll give it a totally made-up name.  I’ll call it … Bisneyland.

If Bisneyland opens at 9:00 a.m., my plan is to have us in place at the entry queue no later than 8:17 a.m.  That way we’ll avoid waiting in lines which can stretch out as much as thirty-five minutes on a busy morning.  Once we clear the gate, I’ll urge my family along by yelling encouragingly at them.  We have to make it to the Splatterhorn by nine-fifteen if we’re going to manage to ride Big Blunder Mountain before ten.  And remember, we have to go see Call World (sponsored by Verizon) because it’s just not … Bisneyland without that dumb song ringing in your ears all day.  Then there’s The Bad Tea Party, Boarin’ Over California, Bar Tours, The Pirates of Penzance, and Innoventions … that’s a real “must see”.  If there’s time on the way out of the park, we’ll stop to visit the famous animatronic presidential exhibit, Great Moments with Mr. Clinton.  Then we’ll take the world-famous duorail back to our hotel.

The day is ruled by the clock and the schedule and, in reality, my family and I could be touring a sewage treatment plant for all the attention I pay to what’s going on around me.  So long as we stay on schedule, I’m satisfied.  The schedule actually means more to me than the safety of my own family and I’d gladly risk being run down by a parade if it got us to dinner for our four-fifty-eight reservation.

Really.

You’d think the situation would be slightly better when we schedule an outdoorsy vacation in some location that is long of nature and short of brightly-colored cartoon characters.  You’d think that, but then you wouldn’t be properly accounting for the depths of my personal neuroses.

 To me a trail map is a challenge.  If it says a hike should take three hours, I plot a route which takes two.  My wife complains bitterly that we are supposed to be enjoying the experience and I’m happy to give her ten or fifteen seconds to fully appreciate the experience at every science viewpoint.  That’s more than enough time to snap off a couple of pictures that I’ll get around to cataloging if I ever have the time.  At the end of the trail I allot a good five minutes for rest before we head back down to our starting point.  What’s not to like about that?  Doesn’t she realize that there are other trails to visit and if we’re going to get them all in on one trip we ought to get moving?

She follows along, muttering darkly, while I shoulder the heavy responsibility of keeping us on schedule.

I suppose it’s actually a good thing I only have two weeks of vacation a year.  I don’t know that I’d have the stamina for any more.

I came home from a tough week at work and my wife said those words that no modern man wants to hear.  “The internet is down.”

Internet? Down?  I contemplated an evening with no access to the multitude of on-line resources; no visiting the NPR website for insightful commentary on the day’s events; no researching the positions of presidential candidates on MySpace; no watching YouTube videos of people hurting themselves in amusing ways with skateboards.  In short, I had no way to entertain myself.

Except, of course, cable television with its two-hundred-plus channels of programming.  Finding comical injury videos was still an option, even if insightful news commentary was unlikely.
“Cable’s out too,” my wife said.

Cable’s out?  A long, empty evening loomed before me.  How could I fill the time?  What had my ancestors done before entertainment was so readily available?  Fortunately, my wife remembered.

“This would be the perfect time to fix the bathtub drain,” she said.

That brought back memories.  Months before, in a burst of optimism that came after watching a show on the Home Improvement channel, I bought a new ChromeShine ™ Ultra-Deluxe drain for our tub.  We needed it because our old drain didn’t exactly seal.  Bathing had become a beat-the-clock exercise in which your choices were a) wash before the water level dropped below usable; b) keep the water trickling from the faucet as fast as it trickled out of the tub; or c) say “the heck with it” and take a shower.

Option ‘c’ was fine as far as I was concerned, but the rest of the family felt differently and when we saw the smiling TV host do the job in eight minutes with a pair of pliers and six-fifty worth of hardware I was trapped.  I bought the necessary hardware, took it straight home, and tucked it in a closet.  From time to time my wife asked when I planned to fix the drain, but I always managed to be “busy”.  With the internet and cable out, that excuse didn’t hold water.

As the sun set, I gathered my tools, dusted off the replacement parts, and squatted in the tub to engage in a wanton act of home improvement.  A few well-chosen (but grunted) words loosened the old drain. It popped out along with a wad of hair that made me wonder if the local zoo had been sneaking into the house to bathe gorillas.  That’s when the electricity went out.

I slipped in the tub, fell back, hit my head and growled in frustration.  In less than an hour I’d gone from being a civilized, twenty-first century guy to a howling savage with a wrench in one hand and a fist-sized clump of hair in the other.  All I needed to complete the picture was an animal skin loincloth.

“Stop whining,” my wife advised.  “I’ll get the candles.”

So, just like my pioneer ancestors, I had to finish fixing the drain by candlelight.

At least I didn’t have to go hunting for food.  We had plenty in the ‘fridge.  We just had to cook it … on the electric stove … or in the electric oven … or the electric microwave.  In an instant I saw the folly of my love affair with electricity.  I’d unwittingly put myself at the mercy of the power company.

With the veneer of civilization stripped away, I slipped into survival mode.  First I needed food that I could eat without having to prepare it.  A search of the cupboards turned up two boxes of raisins, some crackers, a half jar of peanut-butter and (score!) a jumbo-sized box of toaster pastries.  Carefully rationed, that would hold out for at least a week.  So long as my family didn’t find where I’d hidden it.

With my survival assured, I set about trying to get the power back on.  The lack of light in the neighborhood told me that we weren’t the only ones in the dark.  So I used a flashlight to look up the emergency number.

A an authoritative male recording thanked me for calling and then said, “If you are calling to report an outage, please enter your fifteen-digit account number followed by the pound sign.”
I hung up and went to rummage through the files to find the most recent bill.  Reporting the outage eventually involved entering my account code, social security number, birthdate (month, day, year),  blood type, phone number and my mother’s dog’s maiden name.  Those cautious folks down at the power company didn’t want to take any chances that someone might be pulling a prank on them and reporting an outage that isn’t really there.

“Thank-you,” Mr. Reassuring Recording said at last.  “There is already a report of an outage in your area.  A repair crew has been dispatched and we want to assure you that we are doing everything possible to restore your power.  Really.  Working very hard.  Honestly.  We estimate resumption of service by … sometime tomorrow.”

I don’t know if it was the long pause near the end of the over-the-top statements of concern, but I was suddenly very alarmed that I’d never have electricity again. With nothing left to do but wait, we decided to turn in.

Afraid in the darkness, worried that I might run out of food, I curled up under the covers and eventually drifted off to a restless sleep filled with nightmares of a barbarous world utterly lacking in entertainment or electricity.

At three a.m. I was startled awake when the power came back and I realized I’d left the bedroom light on.  As I surveyed my house, with all of its digital clocks blinking twelve, I felt the calm of civilization returning.  I could rest easy, knowing that come sunrise I’d be able to cook my toaster pastry.