Tempus, Frig it!

“It’s been a long day.” That’s what my wife said to me on a Saturday in March, but it wasn’t till a few hours later that I realized that my uninspired response of “Yeah, it sure has been,” was totally insufficient. It was at some point either in my 40s or 50s that I began to realize that time seemed to be moving a little faster, and now, in my 60s, I seem to be soaring along at warp speed, so for Barbara to have said that we were having a long day is extremely significant. Perhaps we had stumbled onto the secret of slowing down this rocket train to Perdition. So I tried to recall just what we had done that day, and it did not seem to be anything out of the usual. It had been a typical, leisurely Saturday, beginning for me slightly later, as usually, with breakfast, and on that particular Saturday, some token attempts at eliminating the invincible mole who continues to plow with abandon through my yard like one of those giant worms in “Dune.” I have tried to kinds of mole poison pellets, and Malathion spraying, finally resorting to jamming the garden hose down one part of his al Qaeda-like tunnels, hoping to see him blasted out of the earth 10 yards away, resting on top of the small geyser of water like some helpless cartoon character. This fruitless endeavor was followed by lunch at “The Mustard Seed,” two and a half hours of misery watching Clemson basketball, which I have since learned is not nearly as excruciating as Clemson baseball, followed by two hours of near dry heaves inducing laughter watching a “Triumph the Insult Comic Dog” DVD, and finally ending in my 30-year long ritual of closing out my Saturday with “SNL.”

Not much here from which to form a time-retarding theory, except maybe the basketball game in which Clemson got soundly thrashed. There was never any doubt about the outcome, so it became excruciatingly painful to watch, to the point that I wished it would hurry up and end, but instead, it continued to drag on and on, with the Tigers getting further and further behind. Therefore, I offer my totally unscientific theory: Unpleasant or painful situations seem to slow time down. Then there’s the case of my unsuccessful jihad against the mole, which is simply a somewhat violent manifestation of yard work, to me the most boring endeavor imaginable, with two hours of the motorized monotony of lawn mowing seeming like four to five hours. Hence, my second theory: Boredom seems to slow time down.

So, it looks like all I have to do is make sure I plan boring and/or unpleasant agendas each day. The first thing I would do is quit my job, which is neither unpleasant nor boring, as evidenced by my work day, which flashes by so quickly that the weeks seem to be only two to three days long. As a matter of fact, this job, which I just started two years ago, may be directly responsible for most of my time acceleration.

Then, there’s my after-work leisure time: I get home around 5:00, listen to a brief accounting of how Barbara’s day went, go for a run, and eat dinner while we watch the news. After this, I either read, write, or check my email till 11:00, when we watch various combinations of Howard Stern, Jon Stewart, Leno or Letterman. I guess I have to include the times that I doze off during our TV watching, a revelation which Barbara will find both interesting and irritating, since whenever she inquires, “Are you asleep?” I always answer, as if being accused of sleeping with Michael Jackson as an adult, “No, of course not, it was just a prolonged blink.” This is a vestigial, reflexive male response, I feel sure, dating back thousands of years, which is triggered whenever the hunter’s essential manliness is challenged: Cro Magnon wife to husband asleep at the cave’s entrance while saber-toothed tigers’ growls are heard outside: “You awake, Zarg?” Zarg: “Of course, woman, me just have some wooly mammoth dander in eyes.” So, to be accused of drifting off during a particularly somniferous Leno monologue is to be charged with abject failure to protect my family, at least according to my genes.

I would seem I need to come up with some things I can experience that will be either or both painful and boring. I have, therefore, devised the following agenda effective tomorrow morning:

6 a.m.: Wake up and instead of listening to Howard Stern or “The Morning Sedition,” break out my new CD, “Bill O’Reilly and Pat O’Brien discuss the effective use of the telephone in relationship enhancement.”
7:30 a.m.: Give my co-worker afflicted with chronic, terminal flatulence, a ride to work, after having treated him to dinner at a Mexican restaurant the night before.
7:45 a.m.: On the way to work, signal of those cars with the decal that says, “Have I shown you the pictures of my grandson?” to pull over, then ask to please let me see the pictures with a half-hour narrative.
10 a.m.: Tell me neighbor, who sells Amway, that I’d not only like to join, but also have an Amway party at my house at least once a week.
12 p.m.: Take my client, who’s the professional wrestling fanatic, to lunch and ask him to catch me up on what’s been happening in the wrestling game since the 50s, then insist on seeing his fake WWE championship belt collection, while also begging him to let me wear one to work.
2 p.m.: Send out an intra-office email saying that I am making my office an official “Rush Room” site, and inviting all “dittoheads” to come and help me celebrate “B.O.B.” (Blame it on Bill) week.
3 p.m.: Meet with a plastic surgeon, tell him I want to look like this, then show him a picture of Don Imus.
5 p.m.: As soon as I get home, insist on not only that Barbara tell me everything that happened on “The View” that day, but also what everyone was wearing, including designer names, plus how many times the term “girl” or “girlfriend” was used.
7:30 p.m.: Randomly call 10 life insurance companies leaving a voicemail message to have an agent call me either at home, work, or on my cell phone, to set up an appointment at my home as soon as possible after I get home.
8 p.m.: Dial up 1-900-Talk to New Yorker for a one-hour three-way conversation with Fran Drescher and Rosie Perez.
9 p.m.: Call Jehovah’s Witness headquarters and request a subscription to the “Watch Tower” only if it can be hand-delivered with a 15 minute sermon.
10 p.m.: Make door-to-door fund-raising calls on Goose Creek residents for the purpose of starting a Goose Creek chapter of the Jane Fonda fan club.
11 p.m.: Instead of watching any late night talk shows, have all my pictures in the family album enlarged, so I can carefully track my personal aging process on a nightly basis.
My weekend would be spent two ways:
Saturday—all day: Shop for used cars, even though I don’t need one, and insist on being served only by guys wearing white belts who greet me with “What can I do you in for?”
Sunday—all day: Work as a Wal-Mart greeter (hence, qualifying me for Medicaid) and request that my wife meet me at the door wearing a blue vest saying: “Welcome home from Wal-Mart!”

There, that should do it, and it shouldn’t take too long to find out if my theories work or not. If they do, an unfortunate side effect will be that you will be cursed with my articles for another 50 years, but will all those years of painful and/or boring experiences be worth enduring? Will the quality of life issue raise its contentious head again, compelling millions who practice my theories to consider living wills? “Questions too ponderously imponderable to be pondered.” (Yogi Berra, 1957) Perhaps, the plug should be pulled—to my computer, that is. Ironically, I feel like I’ve gained a few months writing this article. Just think how much time you’ll acquire having spent three or four days reading it.