Diagnosis Spuddle

Early this morning, I received a text cancelling an event I’d planned to attend. That would not only save me the two hours of the event, it would save me the time it takes to dress in my leaving-the-house-uniform—hair fixed, makeup on and something other than sweatpants.

There was one problem. I’d been planning to get groceries after the event. I work at home and I only do errands on days when I’m already out. Why waste valuable writing time getting dressed in my leaving-the-house-uniform if I don’t have to?

If I could put off groceries until the next time I had to be out, I’d only have to put on my working-at-home-uniform: sweatpants, no makeup, hair combed but not fixed. Think of all the work I’d get done.

I went to the kitchen to plan a menu using available ingredients—mostly canned goods and dry cereal. At this point, I realized it would be helpful to know when I’d be out next, so I’d know how many meals I’d need to make. I found my cellphone after looking in the bedroom, office, living room, family room and finally back in the kitchen where it had been lying on the counter next to my menu all along.

When I opened my calendar, I was reminded that a service person from our internet provider was coming. Uh-oh. Our house looked like the morning after a frat party—except no beer cans and no college boys sleeping on the couch.

I started picking up in that frantic way you do when you look out the window and see your boss pulling into your driveway without calling first. But wait! If our internet was back, I could cancel the appointment. Then I wouldn’t need to pick up the house or put on my service-person-on-the-way uniform—makeup, hair fixed, nicest sweatpants. Think of all the work I could do with two appointments cancelled.

I logged onto Facebook, and it opened immediately. My internet was back! To make sure, I read my newsfeed for twenty minutes. Then I read 35 emails, answered two and went to Twitter. That’s where I saw the word of the day posted by a friend: Spuddle, a 17th century verb meaning to work ineffectively; to be extremely busy whilst achieving absolutely nothing. I laughed, “liked” it and went on. Clearly, I didn’t see it for what it was: a sign from the universe.

I spuddled around on Twitter, read some news, then read some more news. A writer should be informed you know. Finally, I googled the nutritional value of artichokes because I’ve been wondering about that.

That reminded me of my barely started meal plan and the question of whether I could limp along for a few more days without putting on my leaving-the-house-uniform and going grocery shopping. I hoped so because then I could really get a lot of work done.

I hurried back to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator to inventory the contents and decided to eat breakfast. I made a fried egg sandwich with the last egg. Then I started a grocery list, wrote eggs on it, crossed fried egg sandwiches off my meal plan and stacked the breakfast dishes on top of last night’s supper dishes. I couldn’t take the time to do them because I had something else to do. I just couldn’t remember what it was.

That’s when I noticed that if I moved the dirty dishes to the left of the sink, they wouldn’t be visible to a service person walking by. That reminded me it was really only necessary to straighten the parts of the house they’d see: entryway, hallway and one corner of the kitchen.

It wasn’t until I was picking up shoes in the entryway that I remembered. My internet was working! I needed to cancel the appointment—if I could find my phone.

To make sure, I went back to my computer. And I was almost relieved to find my internet down again because it was too late to cancel my appointment. And that’s when the word of day came back to me like the long-sought diagnosis of a mysterious illness. Spuddle: to be extremely busy whilst achieving absolutely nothing. I had spuddled away my morning.

It was nearly noon. I was still in my just-crawled-out-of-bed uniform—bathrobe, no make-up and hair looking like I’ve been out walking on a windy day. I was exhausted and all I had to show for it was a partial menu, two answered emails and a relatively neat entryway. Oh…and this post.