Love in the time of Procrastination

When I was in elementary and middle school (and, honestly, on into the rest of my life), I was easily the world's most gifted procrastinator. No matter how much I loved to read, or how well I tested, or how much teachers liked me, I still could not seem to grasp the concept of completing homework on time. Report cards constantly came home with "assignments missing" and "incomplete" and "your daughter isn't doing what she's supposed to do" all over them. It got to a point where, even though my grades were good, my mother had to start reprimanding me for not completing schoolwork on time.

Worksheets and textbook chapters and vocabulary were bothersome, but generally I found my way through them. I could whip through a phonics lesson in five minutes and receive 100%, but for some reason I could not ever bring myself to appropriately prep for long-term projects. You would think, given the fact that they were "long-term", that I would have been more likely to complete these projects in the time allotted - however, you would be hilariously incorrect. As it turned out, I was even less likely to complete these projects on time! This is because, as best as I can figure it, there was so much more to do, but I was equally uninterested in doing it.

And so, without further ado, I present to you three real-life examples of procrastination in girls: age ten.

#1.) When I hit the fifth grade, class structure suddenly changed. No longer did my day consist of eight hours in the same room with the same people and the same teacher. I now had eight separate classes each day, taught by eight different teachers. Enter: Dr. Rossi. This man was large and loud, and not only did I dislike him because of his undesirable personality traits, but he also taught science. Oh, how I loathed science. Imagine how I felt then, when this big, fat, awful man told me that I would be required to do a science project! Not only that, but I would be almost entirely required to complete it on my own time. Since my science class was now only 40 minutes long, it needed to be spent learning science. Well, fast forward to the day before this project is due. I estimate that I had had probably two weeks to work on this project, if not significantly longer. I say two weeks because that is the absolute shortest amount of time it would have been, and still, doesn't it seem like it should have been enough to research and complete a science project? Yes, it does. But, it wasn't. So I do what I am best at and I say to my mother,

"Mom, I need to go to the library. Today. To finish a project that is due tomorrow that I have not told you about until now."

Needless to say, my mother brought me to the library. (Thanks for not existing in my home yet, internet. I really appreciate it.) I remember spending at least an hour going through books of science projects, and the panic that was rushing through me as I realized that they were all really complicated! But then I found it. The most perfect science project of all. It was informative, it was educational, and most of all - it was easy. Here's what I needed: a string and a spoon.

I went home from the library with the certainty that this would be the best science project ever performed. I whipped up a quick paper about whatever the hell the project was supposed to be demonstrating (something about sound waves), and I gathered my spoon and rope (a jump rope, I remember. My mom said "Will that work?" I said "Sure, of course." She said "Do you want to test it?" I said "No, it will be fine!"), and I packed my bag and I went to bed.

The next day in class, I offered to go first. I hated when I had to speak in front of the class, and I just wanted it to be over and done with, so I walked to the front of the room with my report and props in hand, and I read to my classmates what I was about to present to them. Then, once I'd finished reading the paper, I asked for two volunteers. I asked one to hold one end of the string (jumprope) up to his ear, and the other to hold the other end up to hers. I then tried for what felt like an eternity to wrap the spoon up in the center of the jumprope. The purpose of this experiment was to show that the soundwaves would travel through the rope and up to the ears of the volunteers, but here is what you might not know: jumpropes are pretty thick. Good luck getting one to wrap tightly around a tiny metal kitchen spoon. So, the volunteers stood dumbly on either side of me while I dropped the spoon on the ground several hundred more times, and then I gave up and said I was done and it was over. Verdict: Good thing I wrote a great paper, because somehow I managed to pass that one.


#2.) That same year, in English class with Mrs. Masotta, the project was slightly less involved and slightly easier to plan for. You might think that this means that I was able to prepare better than I had for the science debacle. Hilariously enough, you would be so wrong! I was actually even less prepared! I know what you're thinking. How could I have been less prepared than a jumprope and a kitchen spoon at the last moment? Well, I will tell you.

The project was this: memorize a poem and recite it in front of the class. Bring some sort of prop with you that goes along with your poem. And that's it! Do you want to get a great grade on this project? Then recite Frost and bring a two way street sign. Want to pass, but don't give too much of a fuck about the thing? Then recite Poe and bring a stuffed bird (preferably black). Oh, if only I'd taken the Poe route! But no, I had to do things my way, which meant that I had to wait until the last possible second to create my plan of attack.

The poem that I chose was by a wonderful man named Shel Silverstein. It was called Eight Balloons, and it was a romantic tale of eight balloons escaping out into the world and popping while doing things they'd never been able to do before. It spoke of balloons adventuring to the sun, and of balloons falling in love with porcupines. It told of escapades involving crocodiles and sizzling bacon and playful children. It was full of prop-friendly imagery, and yet somehow I was not able to get my act together in time to take advantage of it.

Instead, I remembered that the project was due that day while I was on the bus on the way to school.

Well, of course I panicked. There was not any way in the world that I was going to be able to both whip up props and finish memorizing the poem before English. So obviously I set my focus on the poem itself. There was always an excuse to be found as to why I didn't have props with me - but there would be no getting out of it if I didn't even know a single, simple, rhyming sixteen lines. When I got to class, I sat quietly at my desk, paying attention, but not too much - trying with every fiber of my being to blend in and not be called up. If I could just get through class without presenting, I could go home and get everything I could ever need to get an A! I would come back to school the next day with a dozen balloons, a stuffed porcupine, several small babies - hell, if it meant I didn't have to recite my poem in the most unprepared manner possible, I would even bring a live pig to the school and slaughter it into bacon myself. I sat quietly thinking these things to myself, and then I heard my teacher say, "Alright class. We'll be doing today's presentations in alphabetical order, starting at the end of the alphabet."

Oh, guess what, that's me. So I guess that's it then. I got out of my seat, and I walked to the front of the classroom.

"Eight Balloons, by Shel Silverstein.

Eight balloons no one was buyin'

All broke loose one afternoon.

Eight balloons with strings a-flyin'

Free to do what they wanted to.

One flew up to touch the sun.

Pop! -"

At the word "pop", I swung what appeared to be my empty hand into the air. The poem continues in such a manner, with each individual balloon popping along the way. Each time I said "pop", I swung my hand out in front of me. I finished the poem, and I returned to my seat. I dreaded the sound of the bell, because I knew that my teacher would stop me on my way out to discuss my lack of preparation. The time came, and I gathered my things, and I was stopped on my way out the door. She said, "Cindy, you can't do a prop project without props." At that point, I sheepishly held out the earring that I had been holding in my hand throughout my presentation. (It was a troll earring. I remember the hair tickling the palm of my hand.) Verdict: Apparently my teacher was impressed with my ability to spout Silverstein, or she just felt bad for me, but somehow I passed this one, too.

#3.) Lastly, this time in sixth grade, I had to read a biography of my choice and do a book report. Then I had to dress as the person that I'd learned about and present the report in character. That was easy enough, I thought at the time. I loved reading, and any assignment that required writing was almost a guaranteed A, so all I had to do was make sure that I did my report on someone who was easily imitatable. For some reason, to a ten-year-old me, that meant: Marie Curie. I don't know if I was like, "Oh, let me pick someone really complicated to possibly impress my teacher and hopefully get an A with many pluses following it!" or what, but it must not have been too tricky, because the reading and the writing aren't particularly memorable to me. What I do remember (as though you haven't guessed) is getting up for school the morning of the presentation and realizing that I was in no way prepared to be Marie Curie.

I was running late that day, which meant that I missed the bus and my mother had to take me to school. Luckily, I remembered the report just before we pulled away from the house! Unluckily, I did not own a labcoat or any other scientific paraphernalia. My mother gave me five minutes to run into the house, find something acceptable, and get back to the car.

I ran into the kitchen in a hurry. Surely there must have been something beaker-esque that I could use to pull off this scientist charade. However, my time was running thin and I was rifling through my cabinets and coming up empty-handed. I decided I needed to take a different route, so I did the only thing left that I could think of. I ran into my mother's bedroom and I got her bathrobe. It was a white terrycloth robe that was pretty well worn and had existed in my home since I was a tiny baby. It was old and it was faded and it was oversized, even for my mother, so it nearly swallowed me whole. I wrapped this robe up into a ball, shoved it into a plastic bag, and ran back to the car. My mother asked me if I'd found everything I needed, and I told her I thought I would be okay, and then she offered me a pair of sunglasses before she started driving.

"If you can get the lenses out of these before we get to school, you can pretend they're glasses. Scientists wear glasses."

Thus was born my Marie Curie costume. I stood up in front of my class, enveloped in this enormous graying robe, wearing empty oversized lenses, and I talked about radiation and Nobel Prizes and other scientific phenomena. That time I even got applause, but I think that's because the teacher started it at the end of each presentation, and the class knew that they were meant to join in or else be sent to the principal's office. I was never spoken to about the awfulness of my costume for this project - I think I was just assumed to be a poor child, and therefore I had done the best I could, for which I received an A with at least six pluses.

The moral of the story, boys and girls, is that procrastination is not the answer. Get your work done on time, be prepared, and take pride in what you do. Or, if you're going to procrastinate, at least be really good at it.

Thank god I am really good at it.