Productive Procrastination

A while ago, as a result of a gross error, my family was forced to move on nothing more than a month's notice. I had never gone through an eviction before. It was not because of late rent payments or anything so comprehensible. It was something very silly.

A broken sprinkler head shot up, piercing the metal soffit outside of the master bedroom. At night, when the sprinklers were on, water streamed up through the hole and into the attic. From there it ran down the wall and out through the baseboards and under the master bedroom carpet. Literally, it soaked the floor as well as ruining the ceiling and walls. The damage was excessive but hardly our fault. Who in their right mind would place a sprinkler head on a riser, in a flowerbed directly under a soffit? Then again who would categorically blame me for 'willfully' running a garden hose up through 'said' hole in the soffit and damaging the house in such a bizarre way?

Landlords!

At any rate, on Super Bowl Sunday, the very night of the infamous Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake halftime 'wardrobe malfunction', we were served with our eviction notice. We had a month to pack up and move out. Reasoning with the landlord proved impossible. Even demonstrating how the damage happened couldn't change his mind. So, we found another rental house, one that was actually much nicer and closer to the kids' schools. Before the end of the month, we moved.

For the most part, the movers consisted of my son, Rob, and me. Rob was a senior in high school. He took a couple of days off to help me. I had to hurriedly take a vacation. When my daughters, Amanda and Sarah, were finished with school for the day, they helped their mother with moving the lighter things. Somehow, we made it through the ordeal. Families have to do those sorts of things.

As you might imagine, Rob and I did the majority of the heavy moving of the appliances, the spinet piano and the larger pieces of furniture. Regardless how big and strong my son and I were, we were at least two people short of the proper number necessary for negotiating that damned piano down the ramp from the moving truck, across the front threshold and into the sunken living room of our new place. The experience was both backbreaking and life-threatening.

Afterwards, my son and I were so physically spent that we wanted nothing more than to soak in a tub of hot water and take a long, well-deserved rest. Yet the truck still contained several more items, some of them fairly large, and others, like the refrigerator, were very heavy as well. My son recovered far more quickly than I did. Kids are resilient like that. Old people notice those things and envy youth.

When I walked up the ramp and into the back of the truck, Rob was anticipating grabbing hold of one of the larger objects and together carrying it into the house. He stood in utter amazement, if not disbelief, as I picked up one and only one rather light box. I turned and, taking my time, I carried it into the house. When I returned up the ramp and back into the truck, I gathered up some more of the lighter, loose things.

"Dad, what are you doing?" Rob asked me.

"This is called 'productive procrastination'," I said. "It is the appearance of being busy or doing necessary things of lesser importance while, in fact, doing little or nothing to minimize the expenditure of energy due to the gross lack of inspiration, motivation, or strength."

Rob shook his head, but at least I made him smile on a day that had been less than fun.