Just As Soon As I Get Around To It

I've been a procrastinator since... well, since the first day I had something to do and a deadline for doing it. Mostly, as the middle child of a minister and a teacher, there was no assignment, schedule, scouting badge or art project that was not paraded in front of my parents' microscope practically before the finger paints dried. So the pressure was pretty intense. When I took IQ tests for elementary school placement, the tester noted in my report that I would have scored higher, but I was terrified of making a mistake so wouldn't even try if I didn't already know the answer.

My sister cut class in high school, and the lady who took care of the attendance called my Dad directly. It's not that 35 other students hadn't ditched school that same day. It was just that my Dad was on the review board for school attendance, and she knew him personally. It was like living in an aquarium, glass 360 degrees around our lives. What they didn't hear through the parent and administrator grapevine, my Mom found out through reading my sister's diary, or my journal.

Hence the procrastination. If you had barely enough time to finish, then it didn't have to be perfect. Done would do. You didn't have time for paralysis when you had a 16 page report on Renaissance cartography due in the morning, and you still had to track down the only book extant in the local public library. (Pre-internet, my friends. Truly medieval.)

In later years, my house would never be cleaner than when I had a deadline waiting to feast on my entrails. Vacuuming never looks as good as it does when I should be doing my taxes.

I've gotten over most of this, but not for any noble reasons. These days my schedule is so full, I don't have time for pushing things back. A job comes in today, and is due tomorrow morning. My procrastination is already done for me before I even get hired.

This could be the perfect job for me. Or a special circle of hell just for procrastinators. I'll figure out which. Just as soon as I finish this game of solitaire. And that load of laundry. And have you seen the vacuum?