Calendar
Limbo
January 10, 2002
Excuse
me if this column is late. But here I am — once again
— in calendar limbo. We've
gone ahead into a new year and since I don't have a 2002
calendar, I have no idea what day it is. Well, that's not
totally true. We did get a lovely "Trees of UMASS"
wall calendar for Christmas. (Made right here in
the Pioneer Valley, too!). That's our "calendar of record" — as in
"I told you I had a late meeting tonight. See, here it is on the calendar of record!
And as long as I'm standing in the kitchen I know
what day it is. But
once out of the kitchen I am lost.
This
happens to me every year. I am always caught off-guard and datebook-less at the start of
each new year. Am I
the only one who the New Year sneaks up on?
I'm certainly the only one who isn't convinced by
the end of December that I will actually soon be needing a
new datebook. When
the nice new calendars and snazzy little datebooks start
showing up in stores around September each year, I look at
them askance.
"What
kind of idiot do you think I am?" I ask. "I have
a perfectly good datebook right here. A week-at-a-glance one. It's been doing a fine job for the last 9
or ten months and I won't be fooled into buying a new one
just because you marketers want me to."
And I pat my trusty little datebook, all dog-eared
and scribbled in.
And
then of course it's December and the empty pages in my
datebook are thin and lonely.
But I still won't be fooled into plunking down
money for something I am not convinced I will actually
need. I mean, sure
history has proven that usually after December 31 the
pages in the old datebook don't quite jibe with reality.
But who's to say this won't be the year it happens?
And then I'll be the smart one and the rest of the
world will be out $14.95 for nothing!
One
day last week — this was still officially 2001, mind you
— I tried to schedule a doctor's appointment.
"How about 2 o'clock on Monday, January
7th?" the receptionist asked.
I looked at my trusty datebook and hung up the
phone, stunned. I can't possibly go to the doctor, have my
hair cut or my teeth cleaned, I suddenly realized.
I don't have 2002!
But
you know something? I
kind of like living in this calendar-less limbo land.
There are no appointments and no deadlines.
It's rather nice. So
I think I'll just put off getting that new datebook until
they go on sale — sometime around April!
(Back
to Eve Droppings)
|
