Too Many Trains, Not Enough Track

Beep beep....
Beep beep....
Beep beep....


This is my microwave.  A polite, electronic "ahem" to tell me that it is done heating whatever it is I put in there three minutes ago to heat and have already forgotten about.

Beep beep...

It drives my husband crazy. He would love to figure out how to disconnect it. "I know my food is in there.  I will get it in a minute!  Why does it have to keep going off like that?"

I'll tell you why.  Because of me.  Or, rather, people like me.  I've made the mistake of turning off the little beep beep but not actually getting the thing out that's in there because I'm in the midst of doing something else.  I'd say this results, about 80% of the time, in me finding the thing -- a cold cup of water, a room-temperature baked potato, or some semi-congealed plate of pasta -- the next time I go to use the microwave.

I do this All. The. Time.  Really.  The house is littered with partially finished projects, semi-cleaned-out boxes, piles of paper that have been somewhat sorted and need to be filed away.  Each half-done chore represents a moment of workus interruptus.  I'd be happy to blame my children or spouse but really, most of the time I distract myself.  I go to put away some towels and discover a shelf covered in things that need carrying to the basement, but by the time I reach the first floor, I remember that I wanted to put in a load of laundry first, and....

The reason I bring this up now is because we just finished mopping up the basement, which had begun to flood while J and I were down there admiring the work he'd done on re-organizing the shelves. The basement was flooding because I'd left the water on in the laundry room sink, which I'd been filling to soak some jeans.  When I started the water running, I began to walk out of the room and stopped myself.  "No.  I need to just wait right here for two minutes while this fills.  It is not that hard to occupy my thoughts for two minutes, because if I leave I will forget and flood the basement."

Really.  This was my train of thought.  Only, it got derailed when J showed up and said "I want you to come look at the basement before I head to the store, and see all the work I've done."  I left my previous train of thought chugging away past the station to Floodville and merrily trooped downstairs.

<sigh>

On the plus side, the floor of the basement is now clear of all the grossness that had accumulated there and the floor of the laundry room is rather clean as well.  Or, it will be when I toss the load of just-cleaned-and-dried-towels that had been sitting there that I used to mop up the mess.

I think it's about time to go make myself some hot chocolate.  With any luck, I'll even remember to drink it before it gets cold.