What a To-do About What To Do

Greetings, y'all. I've just released myself from a self-imposed Internet lockdown. For the past few days I had barred myself from blogging or from any but the most minimal life-support activity on Facebook. Why, you ask? Well it has to do with how I've spent the past week. Which is mostly by eating Oreos and not making a list.

A word on the Oreos: I hadn't eaten them since I was about eight years old, and I recently rediscovered their delights. It's brilliant how they make Oreos so that they are tasty and great fun to eat. I just love the whole process of completely separating the cream filling from the cookies on either side and eating them separately, slowly, a little at a time. I can write freely about this, since I've already outed myself as a food deviant in an earlier post.

Unfortunately while I was regressing into my childhood, I was neglecting to plan my project. Which is to redecorate my home. Which I need to start doing tomorrow. Because I have taken a week off from work for precisely that purpose. I finally got round to making my to-do list late on Sunday night. Now all I need to do is actually do everything on my list.

Of course once I had finally made my list I could lift my internet ban. Naturally, the very next thing I did was log on to Blogger. And through sheer serendipity I read about a blogger who collects to-do lists and has just released a book featuring 100 to-do lists and the stories behind them. I sampled a few. The oddest was one which featured (in this order):
Check linens, put clothes away, dry cleaning/laundry, bills, breakfast, dishes, rent make-up check, divorce, picnic basket.

Huh? It seems there is at least one person in this world who either
a) Can get divorced in the brief interval between doing the dishes and making up a picnic basket.
b) Thinks that making a picnic basket is a great way to get over a divorce.
c) Thinks that checking the linens is more urgent than getting a divorce
d) Is checking the linens to kill time and put off the divorce for just a little bit longer.
d) All of the above.

That one was the oddest, but my favorite list was one in which the last item was 'Become whole'. Become whole? Sure that is a worthwhile objective but it's hardly the sort of thing you'd put on a to-do list. Unless of course you are a Miss Universe contestant. In that case it would be only natural to want to: Check linens, end world hunger, become whole, establish world peace, and eat a salad for lunch.

No, I'm being unnecessarily rude to Miss Universe. After all, there are many others who might put "Become whole" on their list. Such as Jack (the one who fell down and who broke his crown), the three blind mice who had their tails cut off, and poor old Humpty Dumpty.

So now that I am feeling charitable again I think I will contribute one more list to the cyberverse:

My list of the top 5 things that could go wrong while I attempt to redecorate my home:
5. I run out of Oreos and all work has to be halted until I can restock.
4. My dog disapproves of the changes and decides to 'express herself'.
3. My TV gets busted. I know this has nothing to do with redecorating. It's just that I have a constant terror of my TV getting busted.
2. I am so engrossed in redecorating that I forget to become whole.

And the number one thing that could go wrong is...
1. I buy a spanking new drill only to find out days later that I know someone who has a drill with even more attachments than mine.