Procrastinator Extraordinaire

[troubled sleep]

hi! Remember me? No...probably not. I don't think I've stopped by in something like a year. Maybe more. Well, that's partially because this is the first thing I've written that's actually ended up finished in a good long while. It's more to help me remember how to write again more than anything else. Well, that and to try and convince myself *not* to procrastinate since, ironically, I avoided writing an ending for this little story(and there are quite a few stories still on my hard-drive without endings) for longer than I'd care to admit.

 

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Today was the day.

 

Today was the great, red letter—no, the great, 55-foot high blinking red neon sign day for which the world had been preparing itself. The billions of years for which this blue-green lump of a planet had been spinning faithfully around the sun were mere practice for this single, earth shattering day.

 

Today was the day when he, Ryan L. Eason of Schenectady, New York, would be the subject of chat show pundits and dinner conversations and front page news stories. Today was the day that tickertape-parades and banquets and receptions would be planned in his honor. Today was the day that he would write his entire end of semester research paper in just six hours!!

 

. . .or at least that was what he had told himself five hours and fifty-three minutes ago.

 

Well, okay, so originally he was going to write it in just two weeks. Then in just one week. Then in just three days. Then in just 24 hours and now in just six hours.

 

It hadn’t been his fault that he’d been so late getting started. Really, it hadn’t. In his sixteen years of life—12 of which he had spent as a professional, card carrying member of the National Order of Procrastinators (NOP) -- he had never been faced with a task so daunting, so important, so potentially advantageous. To pull this paper off at all would be enough to guarantee him a spot as on the Honorary Council of Procrastinators for the fifth year running. However, a spot on the council was small change to him now. This year Ryan was aiming high. To finish this essay past the general procrastination level of six hours would win him not only a seat on the Council, but also the coveted Order Of Conspicuous Procrastination, First Class. With an Order of Conspicuous Procrastination hanging around his neck there was no way that Char Talisse, the love of his life and the girl he was going to marry(she just didn’t know it yet), could ever turn him down when he asked her to the Winter Formal in January. With Char and that big, shiny medal in mind, he had decided to do the impossible: finish in less than six hours, slashing records and sending all procrastination precedent out the window.

 

Alright, Alright, so when you take all that into consideration it had kind of been his fault that he had been so late getting started—but only kind of!! You see, he’d discovered that the prospect of running out of time on his paper (and thus failing the first semester of 10th grade English) contracted his mind wonderfully. Suddenly, he could focus in a way he could ordinarily never even dream of. Suddenly, he could remember all of the extremely important things he’d been neglecting for weeks. For example, he needed to do things like clean the computer of the 2 gigs of “questionable” material his brother “accidentally” downloaded, clean his room, polish his collection of antique toasters, brush the dog. At some point he also remembered that he’d forgotten to feed said dog lately, and was therefore left with a rather puffy puppy corpse on his hands. Of course, there was nothing for the situation but to first determine the cause of death (cholesterol poisoning. Apparently the poor famished puppy had jumped up onto the counter and eaten the twelve dozen eggs Ryan made that morning after he remembered that he hadn’t made eggs in six months and before he remembered that he was allergic to eggs) and second, give the pooch a proper Christian burial. And if he was going to give the dog a proper burial, he simply couldn’t escape calling Char (so she could see what a caring and sensitive guy he was), his friend Andrew (who had a collection of vintage 1880’s spades that would come in handy against the frozen ground), and his cousin Glennon (who had recently been ordained online as an interfaith minister and could perform the ceremony.) The funeral had taken a little over four hours—including the time it took to tackle the three tuna-noodle casseroles and five jello-molds the neighbors had brought over when they found out there was a death in the family. Somehow the rumor had been started (probably by Glennon) that he deceased was Ryan’s “dear” little sister Kate rather than the family dog. Being a fan of tuna-noodle casserole and jello, he had yet to set the neighbors straight.

 

With less than two hours left, Ryan had started to get nervous. Not panic, just get nervous. After all, he still had the image of the Order of Conspicuous Procrastination around his neck and Char Talisse on his arm to keep him going. However, he had to admit that it was about time to get working on the essay or risk losing everything. But try as he might to get started on his paper, things which had to be done just kept cropping up. By the time the morning the paper was due, rolled around, Ryan had deep cleaned the bathrooms, read War and Peace (Well, the Cliff’s Notes anyway), updated his Last Will and Testament, watched Citizen Kane, learned how to knit, announced his candidacy for the presidency on the Democratic and Republican tickets for 2028, groomed his sister’s cat, listened to all the Beatles’ records forwards, listened to all the Beatles’ records backwards (Paul is Dead!), and read sixteen issues of Scientific American cover to cover. Once all these important tasks were done, he found himself slumped on the floor, completely devoid of all energy. It was then he happened to glance at a clock. It was 6:25 am. In a little under seven minutes he would have to walk out to catch the bus. At first, the sight of these cold, hard numbers filled Ryan with ego-deflating despair. There was no way even a procrastinator of his skill level could possibly write an entire paper in seven minutes. Then something new occurred to him: He would write his paper on the bus!! Forget breaking records, he would be making history by writing on the bus! Pulling this off would earn him a national holiday in his honor! Despite his re-inflating ego and rekindled hopes, however, Ryan realized that he had one major obstacle in his way: staying awake. In a desperate attempt to ward off sleep for the next six minutes, he did what any kid would do in a similar situation: he turned on the TV. When he was able to focus enough on the picture to see what he was watching, Ryan groaned aloud. It was one of those morning news programs—the kind of show Ryan hated almost as much as he hated deadlines.

 

“Goooooooooooood Morning!!” The slightly rotund weather man said, waving cheerily from the screen. “We’re witnessing wintry weather out here on the plaza! Seven inches on the ground in the last two hours, and it’s not just snowing here, folks! It’s a Winter Wonderland from Wanakena to Weatogue to Warwick and the plows just can’t compete! See the bottom of your screen for school closures! Back inside to you, Katie!”

 

Blinking in disbelief, Ryan forced his tired eyes to focus on the scrolling text below the weatherman. Filled with unexpected energy, he leapt to his feet; His school was closed!! Against all odds, a freak snowstorm had closed his school! This was nothing short of divine intervention!!

 

Suddenly, Ryan made a decision.

 

Tomorrow.

 

Tomorrow would be the day! Tomorrow would be the red-letter day in which he would shatter records; tomorrow he would earn ever ounce of that Order of Conspicuous Procrastination, First Class; Tomorrow he would become the subject of chat show pundits and—unfortunately it was at this moment that all his energy deserted him and he flopped to the floor like a rag-doll. But that was okay. He had all day to work on his paper. For now…he’d just rest. He could procrastinate for a few more hours—after all, it was what he did best.

Edited August 16, 2006 by troubled sleep

[dauna]

Wow I really enjoyed that. Brings back some memories, too. Yep, I swear procrastination sometimes made me write better papers then I normally would have with all the time in the world.

 

Wish I'd known there was an award, though! Hey, a reason to procrastinate!

 

You may have caught this by now, but thought I'd mention a typo. Yes, I'm afraid that's all the help I have to offer. I can't think of a single way to make it any better. That's a good thing!

 

Typo: he left to his feet; His school was closed!!

 

I'm going to assume you meant leapt.

 

Great Job!

~dauna

[Sweetcherrie]

*giggle*

 

I know people who would surely fit this profile, I also know people who would by the time they had six hours left only start thinking up the best excuse possible.

 

I used to be one of these people, until I had to start paying for my own education…sorta got more valuable then to do my very best to get a good grade and pass

 

Great story, thank you for sharing it with us