Humor by John Christmann
The Dew Point
I am one of those people who can't sit down. Unless, of course, I am already sitting down, in which case I am one of those people who can't stand up.
Such was the position I found myself the other day when I retreated from the sticky heat into a rather large lounge chair that was resting idly in the shade. There is something I am supposed to do.
Sometimes sitting down helps clear my mind so that I can remember what it is that I just forgot. I keep a chair by the refrigerator for this reason, for those times I open it and can’t remember why I am there.
There is a food that is supposed to improve memory. What is it? It’s not beer. I would remember that.
I find that when I am on my feet I am usually fulfilling tasks: thousands of mindless activities that need to be done right away for some reason. Things like watering the lawn. The problem is that when I am sitting down I think of more things that need to be done when I am standing up. Things like watering the lawn.
It’s even worse when my wife is sitting down.
I sometimes think life is just an endless To Do list. It’s not far from the truth. A recent study by a group which escapes me at the moment concluded that only 2% of the average person’s life is spent planning while a full 48% is spent completing small tasks. The remaining 50% is spent reading email.
Large drops of water are running off the outside of my lemonade glass onto my leg. What do they call that?
I wonder what Warren Buffet’s To Do list looks like? Go to bank, call accountant, go to bank, call lawyer, go to bank, make big decisions, go to bank, water lawn.
I need a vacation. Oh wait, I just had one. Does Disneyland count?
That was the third thing that occurred to me after I sat down. The second was why the house plants are still alive. I never water them. I wonder who does. Maybe my wife. I must remember to ask her.
I told myself I would only sit down for a minute, to clear my head. The kids were inside playing video games. They have been playing since late morning. Or maybe since last week; in August the time all kind of runs together like that. It is still August isn’t it?
Hmmm. The grass is brown. That was the first thing I noticed when I sat down.
If I had like a bazillion dollars I would hire someone to water the lawn so I could sit in this chair all day and generate To Do lists for other people. But I probably would forget to do it. That was the fourth thing I thought of. Or maybe the fifth. The thoughts started falling pretty quickly once I was off my feet. Like the drops from my lemonade glass.
I wish I knew how to clear my mind. Maybe I should learn Transcendental Meditation. I’ll add that to the list of things I will never do so I can forget it later.
I love listening to the crickets sing. It reminds me of a gentler time, when life was simple and so was I, as opposed to now, when life is not so simple and I still am.
Blueberries! That’s the food. I should eat more blueberries.
One hot August afternoon like this when I was about ten I remember drifting aimlessly in a tire swing suspended from the thick, strong arm of a giant oak in my friend’s backyard. The grass beneath the tree struggled to grow because there was so much shade. We were eating wild blueberries.
“Today is Hooty Sapperticker Day” my friend told me.
“Who?”
“Hooty Sapperticker. He devoted his whole life to doing nothing.”
I spun slowly around on the tire swing looking at the filtered sky as it turned like a kaleidoscope through the dark green leaves high over my head and thought about this until I got dizzy and felt like throwing up.
How exactly does someone devote their whole life to doing nothing? What is it they are doing when they are not doing anything? Don’t they get bored?
“Does spinning on a tire swing count as something?” I asked my friend.
He was resting at the base of the tree with a long piece of wild grass in his mouth. He didn’t answer, I guess because he was too busy doing nothing. Many years later he would run a large corporation that manufactured floating lawn furniture and would be too busy to return my emails.
Now all of the crickets were conspiring to fill my head in a great swell of song: Hooty Hooty Hooty . . . Howdy Hooty Sapper Ticker.
Hooty Sapperticker was actually a mind-numbing novelty record from the late 50s. My friend’s sister, who was much older, collected weird stuff like that. She also had an original pressing of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
It was also in the late 50s when Maharishi Mahesh Yogi developed the form of mantra meditation which he would call Transcendental Meditation. After years of intense yoga training the Maharishi accidentally transcended into a thoughtless state of mind after spending twelve hours trying to expel Hooty Hooty Hooty from of his head.
The Maharishi had many famous followers: The Beatles, Shirley McClain, Jane Fonda, and Mike Tyson to name a few.
Ting tang walla walla bing bang. My friend told me that was John Lennon’s mantra before he became the egg man and changed it to goo goo ga joob.
I am sure with practice and a significant amount of television it is possible to empty your mind completely. There is a check out clerk at my grocery store who has done it. And Larry King has come close.
What day is it? I need to get out of this chair. Summer is almost over and I really should water the lawn.
Condensation! That’s what they call it. It’s when the swollen air reaches the dew point around a cool object and releases all its moisture. Like dew on the grass.
Oh yeah, now I remember, I need to buy a hose.
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