[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_mxsjHrMmY&rel=0&hl=en&w=425&h=355]

A little something to make you smile today.

in·er·tia (n):  the inability or unwillingness to move or act.

I am Sarah.

At 6:56 a.m. I opened my eyes, my mind already swimming in all the things I had to do today.  Sitting on my desk are three piles, piles that have been sitting there for the past two weeks.  One is midterms, waiting to be corrected.  One is journals, waiting to be read and one is the month’s bills, waiting to be paid.  All have to be attended to by Monday.

“Coffee,” I said to myself. “I think I’ll have a cup of coffee.” Tick, tick, tick.

I read the paper and had a second cup.  Tick, tick, tick.

“You’re up early,” my husband commented as he padded into the kitchen to see what part of the paper was available.

“I have so much to do.”  I said.  Tick, tick tick.

“Me too,” he chimed in.  “I’ve got teacher evaluations to do.  April is a bad month.”

“April is the cruelest month.”  I said, reciting the line from the T.S. Eliot poem “The Wasteland".  It is National Poetry Month after all.

“Mom, what is there to eat?”

Nothing. 

“I have to go shopping," I confessed.  Add another thing to the list. “I’ll go get something,” I said and off I went to get a few breakfast sandwiches and a third cup of coffee.  Tick, tick, tick.

“Are you ready for baseball practice?” asked my husband of our youngest who was still in his pajamas.  “You have to be there in 10 minutes.” 

“I’ll take him,” I said.  “I’ll go sit in my car and read the journals there."  If I stay here, I’m apt to decide to clean the refrigerator, or fold laundry, or pull weeds or clean out the hall closet.  Heck, I might even watch the Giants…. anything but get going on that pile of grading I’ve got to do.

Procrastination.

“Have you set up your community service hours yet?’ I ask my oldest on my way out the door.  He’s had it assigned since September, we've talked about it ad nauseum and they're due next week.

“No,” he replied sheepishly. Of course not.

Apparently it’s a family trait.

“I had the strangest dream,” I said to my youngest who was putting on his socks and cleats in the car as we drove to the field.  “I dreamt we had guinea pigs… dozens of guinea pigs… so many of them that they were crawling all over each other, squishing each other against the sides of the cage.  And I was worried because they were multiplying… more and more and more guinea pigs kept appearing, like in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice when the brooms multiply, one after another after another.”

“You have really weird dreams, Mom.”

Maybe, but you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out what they’re about.

I am Sarah Sylvia Cynthia Stout.  Are you?

*Thanks to Patti Digh for her gracious technical support.