Like most people, I was born with 38,894,400 minutes to do with as I please before I depart this earth and embark on my journey into the next life. If I’m lucky, I’ll be reincarnated as a sexier model of my earthly self, with a chance to marry Amy Darowitz, have 10 kids, go to Harvard Law School and become a managing partner at Cohen, Beckermann, Feuchtwanter and Hincklestein. Short of that, I’ll just have to make the best of the time I’ve been given.
Time is such a nebulous concept that I’ve felt the need to explore it on more than one occasion. The first time was literally the day after I was born. Lying in a bassinet, a diaper filled with digested Similac, time came to a screeching halt. Then I discovered that if I cried loud and hard enough, I could make anyone – including my mother – drop what they were doing and immediately attend to my personal needs. In essence, I had the ability to accelerate time. A few years later, I learned that I could slow time down by bringing home a crappy report card. “Wait until your father gets a load of this,” threatened my mother. Anticipating my father’s leather belt across my heinie, the afternoon couldn’t have moved slower if I was Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt.
It took me years to discover that I, alone, control the time I spend on earth. If I watch my cholesterol and eat my peas, I could live to be 100. I can add years to my life by having frequent sex, quitting my stressful job, getting more sleep and regularly imbibing alcohol – all of which seem like good ideas, until you consider that I’m not married, unemployed and already spend most my day drunk on the couch.
I can shorten my life if I fly on commercial airlines, talk on my cell phone while driving a motorcycle, hang glide high on crack cocaine, smoke cigarettes and start robbing banks – but not by much. Just by being male, I’ve already shortened my life by more than 10 years. Nevertheless, I still have roughly 74 years to cram everything into the space that I’ll call, My Time on Earth. The secret is to avoid things that make you think time is passing quickly, opting instead for activities that make time crawl.
Young children learn this early and attempt to pack as much into a day as humanly possible. That’s why you see them running from one place to another, skipping lunch and complaining about being sent to bed. The only time you’ll find me running is when someone announces that Dulcolax suppositories have gone on sale. Children spring out of bed in the morning, looking forward to new opportunities, while middle-age adults have already experienced everything that’s ahead of them. Sometimes twice. I look forward to discovering that mold hasn’t overtaken the casserole in the back of the refrigerator, so I’ll have something to eat for dinner, after all.
I started this morning by ignoring the alarm clock. It jolted me out of a deep sleep and informed me that the day had begun, whether I chose to participate or not. I might not have, except for the dentist’s appointment I had at 9:00 – a great place to suspend time.
Whenever I’m worried about time passing me by, I go to the dentist. Sitting in the waiting room, listening to the patients shrieking and the whine of the hydraulic drill, time stands still. Every time I look up at the clock, it’s the same time that it was 10 minutes ago. Suspended animation sets in when Dr. Dentin says, “Just sit tight for a minute. I’m going to go get the biggest hypodermic needle you’ve ever seen and jam it into your bleeding gums.”
After leaving the dentist’s office, I endured the afternoon at my mother-in-law’s house, listening to her complain about important world affairs: the rising prices of Kaopectate, the new varicose vein she found behind her knee and how broccoli makes her fart. All with a full bladder because I refuse to use an old person’s bathroom.
There are easier ways to slow life down than going to the dentist or spending the afternoon at your mother-in-law’s. I worked for a Temp agency one summer when I needed money for mortuary school. Temp agencies have the monopoly on worthless jobs and are happy to thrust you into suspended animation, one assignment at a time. Over the course of four months, I worked as a bank teller, night watchman, meter reader, swing shift call center representative, toll booth operator, Walmart greeter and mail sorter for the IRS. It was like living my life encased in Jello. To help time slip away, I’d come in late and leave early. I’d drink so much coffee that I had to continually use the bathroom. Instead of using the restroom just down the hall, I’d get in my car and drive home.
Finding ways to make time go faster is much easier: see how many new apps you can download on your iPhone in an hour, take a nap, followed by another nap, learn how to fly a jet fighter, have sex with your next door neighbor while her husband is outside mowing the lawn, summit Mt. Everest while holding your breath, play the National Anthem using your hand and armpit, learn how to turn your eyelids inside out or figure out how to push a pencil into one nostril and out the other without making yourself bleed.
Once I pass over the threshold into my golden years, I’ll be looking for more ways to slow time down. According to experts, the best way to stretch your day is sticking to a routine. Eat the same breakfast. Walk to the mailbox to see if your Social Security check arrived – even though the last one just came yesterday. Take the bus into town to refill your oxygen tank and stock up on Depends. Have lunch at the Walmart lunch counter, then catch the bus back home in time to watch The Price is Right and Jeopardy. It’s time for bed.
Regardless of how it feels, my life continues to pass me by at an alarming pace. I can tell because the number of my nightly visits to the restroom is increasing in proportion to the size of my prostrate. That and I just don’t have the energy to pole vault anymore. But, that’s OK. I’m looking forward to a long happy life with Amy Darowitz and being a partner at Cohen, Beckermann, Feuchtwanter and Hincklestein.
