A Wrinkle In Time

No, I'm not talking about the excellent YA science fiction adventure novel written by Madeleine L'Engel.

I'm talking about how the flow of time gets all scrunched up now and then causing everything to happen at once.

You know, like the toilet overflows just as the doorbell rings, or the baby starts spitting up just as the toddler reaches for the hot stove. Moments like that when you have to be in two places at once or think two thoughts at the same time.

I had one of those wrinkles today. It wasn't major, like the toilet thing, though I've been there. It only lasted a second, but it was annoying nevertheless.

I start out on the phone with Vista Print. I got an order of promo stuff today with some items missing. As I'm on the phone with a customer service representative from the other side of the planet who is reading off a scripted apology to me in heavily accented monotone, I look out my window to see some guy waving a day glow yellow wand at my front lawn.

Since I don't live at Hogwarts, the sight of someone waving a wand at things is unusual. So I throw open the window and yell, "Can I help you?" which interrupts the canned apology on the phone. I'm telling the CS rep, "Hold on a minute, please. I have a problem here." And wand guy thinks I'm talking to him. He starts talking about looking for some cement monument which he believes is buried in my yard.

Uh, right. So I yell out the window, "Just hold on one second." I hang up with Vista Print, apologizing for not being able to listen to her rehearsed apology and rush out the door. By now the dog is having a conniption, and the school bus is pulling up outside.

Wand guy starts telling me about this surveyor's monument, which according to his handy dandy map is right in the middle of my front yard. He assures me he won't be digging anything up, he just needs to know where it is, and the beeping, glowing wand will tell him that. Uh, okay. Now DD is off the bus and demanding to know if I watched 'Ghost Hunters' last night [I had to tape it because I was watching the season premiere of Bones - which basically sucked, but that's another story]. So I'm fielding DD, and Wand Guy and the dog is still barking.

Now, I know, you're saying, so what? And I agree. It's not like a national disaster, it's just a small glitch in the Matrix, but it's annoying nonetheless. Things should happen linearly and one at a time like they do in novels, so I can process one thing before I go on to the next.

Note to the universe: Iron out the wrinkles, please. I can't do two things at once.