By Kelly Kazek
kelly@athensnews-courier.com
December 31, 2007 09:27 pm
—
Whew.
It's amazing how suddenly light I feel ... can you hold on while I finish painting this last fingernail? Oh, and there's the phone ...
Back now. Sorry.
Since experts in news reports stated that — much like drinking, smoking weed or reasoning with a teenager — multi-tasking can actually decrease your brain function, I have tried to stay on the one-thing-at-a-time wagon. The only problem is, I fall off whenever I try to text message while putting on mascara.
Oh, like you haven't done it.
I figure, if we weren’t supposed to eat lunch while driving, God wouldn’t have put those handy little drink holders in cars.
Moms multi-task by instinct. Any mom worth her "I (heart) you” Mother’s Day necklace learns to change a diaper while holding her nose and opening the lid to the Diaper Genie or to find the one clean pair of underwear in the bottom of a teen’s closet while making out the grocery list.
It’s called "Survivor: Parenting Island.”
Sure, our brains are on overload and we can’t remember anything. I compensate by writing myself little sticky notes and putting them on my computer (maybe that’s why I can never read the screen) and leaving voice messages: "Hi, Kelly. It’s me. Kelly. Just wanted to remind you about that doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”
I’m usually pretty polite to myself, but some days ...
Things got bad at my house the other night when I injured myself because I was ironing while putting on panty hose. The doctor says the burns will heal but my daughter Shannon had to perform an intervention.
"Mom,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s time you focused on one thing at a time? The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
I pointed to the cell phone permanently stuck in her hand, made claw-like from sleeping with it clutched that way, and the thumb that no longer straightens because of long, time-consuming text messages describing the latest drama at school (like why on God’s little green acre Cindy thought bangs would be a good look for her.)
Shannon slunk away like the name-calling pot she is.
Still, I want to be a good role model.
But temptation is everywhere. I know this sounds paranoid and insecure — you don’t think it does, do you? — but I don’t think the unseen “they” that controls the advertising that seeps into our collective brain want us to kick our habits.
If they did, would they erect hugemongous TV screens by the roadside, slap some commercials on them and call them billboards? They don’t expect us to pull over to the side of the road to read them, ergo (I’m not sure what that word means but that was the perfect spot for it), we wind up watching TV while driving.
Brilliant idea. That advertising bonehead probably got an award and a gazillion dollar bonus and is working on a gadget to infiltrate our brains with commercials while we sleep — the only time left that we aren’t multi-tasking.
And if they wanted us to focus on only one task at a time, would they keep putting those obnoxious, animated pop-up promos on the bottom of the TV screen right in the middle of our movies?
The other night, I told Shannon: “I don’t remember Homer Simpson starring in ‘Beaches.’”
Then I realized the cartoon Homer dancing across the hiccupping-sob, quadruple hanky death scene was a commercial for an upcoming show. Ruined a perfectly good cry.
How many things do they think we can focus on at one time?
I think I’ll write those TV promo people a letter and give them a piece of my mind. As soon as I find the sticky note that says where I put it ...
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