Monday, 7/22

Is it any wonder I can never relax over the weekend?

Most people (i.e. normal people) use their weekend to relax and recharge from their previous week, and to rest up for their upcoming week. But do you think I can EVER do anything like a normal person? No. . .that would be waaaaaaaaay too easy.

Case in point--instead of spending the few precious unscheduled hours in my life this weekend vegging out, catching up on the Tour de France or doing another run-through of our "What's Up Dock" show (coming up tomorrow night, after all), I spent some of that precious time trying to solve a mystery as unsolvable as any a Ellery Queen or Nancy Drew may have solved in their prime--

I spent some of my precious free time this past weekend trying to figure out why I had a pen that said “Escanaba Senior Center” on it.

It’s a very good pen; it’s bright orange, has a nice “feel” to it, and writes quite well. But because maybe I AM closer to zero on the Jim Stir-Crazy Clock than I thought, I started to wonder where I’d actually picked up the pen, instead of just using it and then ignoring it (you know, like a normal person). I haven’t been to Escanaba recently. While I AM getting older, I’m nowhere near Senior status yet. And as far as I can remember, I didn’t even know Escanaba HAD a center like that.

So just where did I get the pen?

This much I know--it was in my back pack as of last week. I know that because I needed a pen to write down a note while walking to work, and I was lucky enough to find it there. But the questions started to pile up. When did it go into my back pack? I have no idea. How did it get into my back pack? Once again, I’m clueless (in case THAT wasn’t painfully obvious). I’m thinking I must’ve picked it up somewhere, but where? Who do I know (or where did I go) that would have a pen from the Escanaba Senior Center? And, most importantly. . .

Why was I spending so much time thinking about this?

It was about that time that I realized I even the few minutes I’d spent pondering the question were a few minutes too many. I realized I should use the time for more worthwhile pursuits, like the Tour, or working on the three history shows I have coming up, or pestering Loraine. Much like the question of who built Stonehenge or why do people like black licorice, I realized that this was one of those mysteries that can never be answered. The pen was in my back pack; it ended up there somehow, and it’s quite possible that that “somehow” was lost to the mists of time. Maybe I was never meant to know how it got there. After all, it’s only a pen. It’s not one of the mysteries of the universe.

Unlike, say, why people like black licorice.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)