Beam Me Up, Scotty!

I need a team of physicists to come to my house. They need to bring elaborate instruments and detection devices to study a mysterious wrinkle in the time-space continuum that takes place regularly in my home.

Here are the facts. I diligently record every event that I need to attend on a calendar. Every Sunday, I check that calendar to see what’s in store for the following week. Then, every night before I go to bed, I check it again to see what time I need to leave the house. I do this because I have a very irregular schedule depending on which part time job I’m working, or which exercise class I’m sweating in. I’ve always considered myself a well-organized, responsible person.

It doesn’t seem to matter how early I get up, or how much I’ve planned, during my routine, I will look up at the clock and have 45 minutes until I have to leave. Five minutes later, I will look at the same clock, and it’s time to leave, and I am not ready. There is some sort of bizarre time compression that occurs in that 45-minute window of time, and it happens 99% of the time that I’m trying to get out of the door.

Phones ring, and the person on the other end of the line has urgent business, but they’re talking at a leisurely pace. Dogs refuse to come back in after being let out. Car keys, and shoes that I just wore yesterday disappear. If I’m packing lunch, there’s no bread left. If there’s bread, then there are no more baggies. If I wash my hair, the blow dryer blows a fuse. Earrings fly across the room into a black hole. Then the traffic guy on TV announces that there’s a major backup on my route—no matter where I’m going.

My friend Carol has the same problem, so the team of physicists could study her house too. She picked me up this morning, and asked why the two of us consistently arrive at our destinations looking like we just parachuted in after being pushed out of a plane. I’ve shown up at work wearing two different shoes, which is even more embarrassing and harder to hide than when I wore mismatched socks.

A third friend we carpool with doesn’t have these problems. She finds our predicament humorous. The group that we work with seems to look forward to our frazzled, Kramer-like arrivals complete with tales of woe.

I’m glad that our “problem” is good for some laughs, but I just don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to “hit the ground running.” I’d like to schedule the physicist team to start studying and analyzing the data as soon as possible. I can pretty much guarantee I won’t be ready when they ring the doorbell, so they’ll be able to start studying time compression immediately.

Laura Keolanui Stark is searching for her brown watch that was just here. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com