I cleaned up some papers today.
Things had gotten out of hand. Instead of dealing with things item by item, I kept hitting the “delay” button.
If you’ve ever played around with audio effects, you know what “delay” can do.
You can make a single sound repeat once, or twice, or three times, or turn the dial up to infinity.
That one sound can potentially repeat and repeat and repeat into a mad cacophony of throbbing, feverish noise, rising and rising in pitch and intensity without stoppage, like sound effects from some low-budget ‘70s devil movie.
The equivalent visual effect is “looking in a mirror while holding a mirror;” the curved haunted tunnel to forever stretches out behind (or in front of) you eternally. The kind of thing you dream about when you’re really sick.
That’s what my paper collection had become. Let one piece sit on the desk for a day, and it attracts another piece, which attracts three or four more, and then we fast forward to when the dial has been turned up to infinity and now it takes a whole day and a half just to be able to see the desk again.
I grew up shoveling snow. For six months of the year, precipitation meant snow, which if you don’t shovel, accumulates and compacts to the point of smothering and immobilizing any and all outdoor activity or travel.
But I didn’t like shoveling every day, even though that’s what you have to do sometimes.
No, I wanted to wait until the big ferocious snow-dumping monster had totally blown itself out, and three or four feet lay like frozen ganache on the landscape. Only then would I attack it valiantly with picks and shovels, sweating and bellowing as if I was repelling the pagan hordes.
I wanted to get a medal from Princess Leia for my huge endeavor and let the soundtrack swell and the credits roll.
I didn’t want to go out every fricking day and skim a couple of inches of powder off my dinky driveway. Where’s the fun in that?
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