Friday, October 22, 2010

Fruit flies like a banana.

Having no sense of how long things take has led to my always adding half an hour to how long I think anything will take. I figured out a long time ago that going shopping doesn’t just involve walking around shops - it involves:

  • Getting ready to go to the shops (day clothes rather than pyjamas, shoes, brushed teeth etc) 
  • Finding everything I need for leaving the house (phone, wallet, keys, etc)
  • Getting to the shops
  • Finding a parking space
  • Getting from parking space to shops
  • Allowing time for having to “shop around” if you’re not happy with the price, or can’t find what you’re after in the first shop
  • Waiting in line at the checkout
  • Getting your things to the car
  • Going back to the shops to get the thing you forgot to buy
  • Waiting in the checkout line again
  • Getting to the car again
  • Driving home
  • Unpacking your shopping
  • Collapsing from the exhaustion of it all
For me, every trip I take is a multi-step process. Every possibility needs to be accounted for. I can be prepared as I like with lists and reminders, but the fact is that each of these "steps" takes time and each one needs to happen at least once.

Ever heard the phrase “You’d never get across the room if you had to think about how to walk”? I do get places, but it can be quite stressful, and the alternative is locking myself out of the house, or having to take two trips because I forgot my wallet, or something else which makes it even worse. It's all more or less part of a routine now so it doesn’t bother me quite as much as it could, but that’s the trick: It’s routine. It’s regimented. If I deviate from the routine, my world falls apart.

Welcome to my world.

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