No Noose Is Good Noose

I never was very good at delayed gratification. I suppose that it's supremely unremarkable to say so, and I may as well add that I'm not very good with math or that I have difficulty sleeping very well. These are things that apply to virtually everyone, and so I'm not going to pretend that I'm special on account of any one of them. Their ubiquity doesn't make them untrue where I am concerned however, and in fact may make them of somewhat more interest than less common idiosyncrasies of mine, so I'll go on. I believe I was speaking of delayed gratification? For me it was mostly a concept which related to something I was going to receive- a gift perhaps, or something that was to come in the mail. I never could bear to wait, and yet I'd trade the kind of waiting I sometimes do now for that anytime.

Today it's more often something I'm waiting to know- something that affects my livelihood or future. I guess I'd rather not know about a thing at all until it was right on top of me. As the song goes, the waiting is the hardest part. You can deal with the grisly aftermath a thousand times more easily, can't you? The Germans found that out by chance during the Blitz in World War Two. A certain percentage of bombs they dropped on England were defective and failed to go off on impact. As it turned out, it had more impact when the Brits scrambled to prevent an explosion that might happen than it did when one just happened. The Germans then started making bombs that went off later on purpose. It was scarier that way.

My Turn!

I described one personal fault yesterday, and turn to another today. If I wanted to, I could stay in this vein to the exclusion of all else, but I try to spare you of my failings when I can. Anyway, recently I went to do some laundry only to find all three washing machines (which are meant to serve a complex of over thirty units, and often do) occupied by the task of cleaning someone else's clothes. It was the same story last time. Obviously I am unsympathetic to the needs of these anonymous rivals. The whole thing has me thinking about waiting one's turn or just being in line. They say that in England there's a proud tradition of "queueing up". I suppose that's not the American way, and it may not even be the English way anymore.

Waiting my turn and then taking it can be hard for me. Merging into traffic while driving was a frequent nightmare. You have to wait and wait and wait, then seize your chance before someone else does. It's a similar story when I am in a prayer circle, and the dreaded words "popcorn around" are uttered. Several people are about to offer prayers in succession, with no logical order to it. It's exactly the same as merging into traffic, and as nerve-wracking. Prayer's meant to be soothing, right? I like it a thousand times better when waiting takes the form of linear progression. I can grasp that. Waiting in conventional lines such as the grocery store checkout is easier to deal with, if no more sure of passing quickly and uneventfully. There's something about being forced to stay with the situation but also have diversions to keep you stimulated that makes it not so bad. Maybe the tradition of having waited in lines of that kind with my mother since I was a child makes it a kind of tedious walk down memory lane.

A Package In The Mail

I don't deal especially well with delayed gratification. I think I do better now than I used to, but waiting for something I want is hard. The prime example of this is waiting for something to come in the mail. You might think that Netflix is not for me, but I cope.

Suppose that something is coming in four to six weeks. The first four weeks are ok, because on any particular day, I know it's not coming that day, so I mainly can put it out of my mind. As soon as it can come any day, though, every spare moment I have is apt to be consumed with anticipation of the package coming.

There was some release today, then, when a package containing a University of Florida football championship shirt and some Arizona Cardinals cups. Now, I guess, it helps to have online tracking. There used to not be that.