ADHD: A flow of consciousness, out of body action adventure story

ADHD: a flow of consciousness, out of body, action adventure story

To make a cup of coffee is a simple, easy and speedy process.  Intuitively, one removes the permanent filter from the basket, empties it in the sink and rinses it out.  Pour water into the tank behind the filter. Measure the amount of coffee in proportion to the quantity of water and to the taste of the consumer. Close the lid.  Press the botton, wait a few minutes and voila, the perfect cup of Java. Simple!

This morning while waking up the primitive part of my brain, that part dedicated to survival, fight or flight and navigating night time trips to the washroom, flashed the imperative for coffee across the neon sign that was my brain.  At these moments despite just getting out of bed I am capable, as if tingling with spider like senses, to perceive the world holistically, instantly and perfectly.  As if with psychic ability my neurons are like super information highways and my entire being of mind and soul is sending and receivng one karmic, cosmic message at the same time. “Must have coffee.”  

The distance betwen the edge of my bed and the coffee machine is exactly 19 steps.  I stand up and begin the journey.

Only, before I reach the bedroom door I pause to pick up the socks and underwear I left on the floor the night before and put them into the laundry basket by my closet, I then think about laundry for a moment, for that is all it takes, and it seems that the basket is getting ominously full with dirty wash and being that it is Saturday I should probably do the wash and if I do the wash I should probably wash my bedding at the same time; so naturally I start to strip the bed and take the pillow cases off the pillows and stuff everything into the basket and it is then that I reason, it would only make sense to put the pajamas I am wearing at the time into the wash and be far more efficient in the process after all its all about time management; so without hesitation because time is of the essence I take them off, the pajamas that is, and then quickly realize the vulnerability of my nakedness and immediately go to the closet and get a flannel shirt that makes me feel like a lumberjack when really I don’t know the first thing about how to handle a chainsaw, but put the red checkered shirt on any way as I think its all about image and comfort however, I soon realize of course that I need a sweat shirt and socks, and pants would be helpful too, but my organizational paradigm has placed those items in an adjacent room, in fact in the guest bedroom, and in another dresser; so I leave the laundry basket and the stripped down bed to get my socks and put them on while at the same instant thinking boy I could sure use a coffee, and so at that moment,  for sometimes  doesn’t it just seem that life is all in the moment and what is more gratifying than to start the day with coffee; so I head to the kitchen now partially dressed, but as I leave the guest room I again see the job I had started with the laundry and think I should finish what I started which actually was to make coffee, but I have by this time temporarily lost sight of that goal in an effort to deal with this very large burden of laundry, but of course all part of my grand master plan, my God the basket was so full; so I got the basket and walked down the hall passing the second bedroom which is now really a computer room/art studio and I saw that I had left out some dirty dishes from the night before because it was here that I watch TV on the large definition I Mac screen (not I Max) instead of the TV in the living room that does not have nearly such a good resolution; so I set the laundry down by the computer and gathered up the dishes which I placed on a tray that I use as my TV table and carried the dishes out to the sink which is right next to the coffee machine and my God does a coffee sound good right about now; so I ignore the dishes for a while and clear the sink so I can go about cleaning the filter from the last time I made coffee which was the day before and as I bang the filter down over the drain the coffee comes out and I turn on the faucet to clean the filter and it is then that the snooze alarm goes off on my Blackberry convienently located on the night stand beside my bed  a mere 19 steps from the coffee machine; I head in that direction in order to reset the alarm clock function, but at the same time I notice that the red light is flashing on the top of my cell indicating that a mesaage has come in and I just have to marvel at the technology of how such a tiny but well crafted piece of electronics can nab a signal from space and connect me to the rest of the world my God it was a miracle; so I flick the pad with my thumb to the proper icon enablying me to see that there wasn’t just one message but three and while being conscience of good time management skills I thought that I would read all of my messages over a cup of hot coffee because I find that the first cup of the day is always the best and I look forward to that moment; so I took the 19 steps back to the coffee machine to finish making the coffee, however, on my way there I walked by the second bedroom and saw a laundry basket sitting on the floor, how on earth did that get there I wondered, so realizing but ever cognisant of the fact that tidyness is next to godliness I took a quick detour picked up the laundry basket and started for the laundry room which is really the cavernous dark unfinished basement, but as I left the bedroom I glanced across to the washroom and thought it would be wise to throw the towels into the wash as well, so once I gathered those I walked into the kitchen and saw that someone had started making coffee but never finished the process; so I set the wash basket down on the kitchen floor and took the coffee filter out of the sink and placed it into the basket in the coffee machine where it belonged, as I reached for the can of coffee which I always keep close at hand for convenience  I quickly realized that it was  almost empty which caused me to walk over to the cupboard on the other side of the kitchen where I have 17 cans of Illy coffee in readyness for such an occasion which by the way we got at a great price from Cosco, and I am aware that some people are of the school of thought that purchasing in such large quantities does not really save money, rather it promotes over consumption and waste, but how silly I thought you can never have too much coffee; so I picked up a can and as I walked back to the coffee machine I rather abruptly pulled the tab that releases the pressurized seal on the can of illy coffee and with a powerful implosion of air coffee was forced out of the can over my hands and onto the basket of laundry that I noticed with some degree of irritation  someone had left in the middle of the kitchen floor, that is just too dangerous; so I placed the can of coffee down next to the coffee machine picked up the laundry basket and quickly took it downstairs to the washing machine where I used one of the dirty towels to wash the coffee of my hands from the imploded Illy can while thinking what a busy morning it had been so far and I could sure use a cup of coffee right about now, but I am focussed on the task at hand and do not like gettting distracted, a quality I admire in myself for you see I had just finished reading the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, who is from Elmira which by the way is very close to my home town of Waterloo and he writes about the power of thinking without thinking  and that is precisely the methodology I use when sorting the wash and through the intrinsic process of thin slicing, a term from the book, my many years of domestic experience kicked in and in moments I am quite remarkably able to sort all the darks, semi darks and grey matter into one collosal pile and everything else into another. It is a unique binary organizational model that works for me, although admitately my wife is somewhat dubious about its application because as an artist she is able to subdivide a small pile of dirty laundry into 17 distinct colour groups much like paint chips in a hardware store, however, I have learned that good decision making  has less to do with how much information we pocess than our ability to focus on a few particular details and if that does not speak to my strong suit I don’t know what does and so with my laundry sorted and ready to go I then set the dials on the Maytag, as a got an image in my mind of the underemployed Maytag repairman from advertisements I had seen in the 80’s, I chuckled at my private joke and selected the extra rinse, set the water temperature and the like and measured quickly and accurately the exact amount of liquid soap being certain to put it in while the water was running allowing it to mix well before putting the clothing in, next I put the lid down and before I headed back up the stairs I quickly threw an anti static sheet into the drier as a handy time saving gesture in anticipation of the completed wash cycle, I find little details like that make a difference when it comes to time management; when I got to the base of the stairs I saw 12 containers of bottled water, which I hate to admit that I bought from Walmart, with 10 L in each container I thought that since I was downstairs anyway I should bring one up because I know I was running low on water upstairs and besides if I was about to make coffee I could use some more water because the tap water is full of toxins and heavy metals from the petroleum industry upstream from us, but not to lose focus on my story that is a whole other topic let me tell you; but because the water container was heavy I got to the top of the stairs and set it on the floor because I couldn’t set the water on the counter where it belongs because someone had set a tray of dirty dishes there, damn it if housework is never done you just finish one job and there’s always another one waiting; so I ran water in the sink, squeezed some liquid soap into the water and noticed a fine layer of coffee over the floor and part of the counter, where the hell did that come from I said out loud in my frustration, so naturally being somewhat of a neat freak I took a cloth to clean up the coffee mess; once done I put the tray of dirty dishes into the sink and started washing the dishes and as I washed I glanced over at the coffee machine sitting there with a basket of coffee but no water in the tank; so I paused from the dish washing and got the 10 L container of water I had just brought up from the basement and placed it on the counter, I took the lid off, but the water poured out way too slowly; so I got a sharp knife from the drawer and cut some holes in the top of the water container so the water would pour out faster, something about a vacuum or air block in the plastic container, I then took the coffee carafe from the coffee machine and filled it up with water and began to pour it into the tank; but as I poured I noticed, as if for the first time that this particular coffee machine, Hamilton Beach, had a timer that would  automatically turn the machine on at a predetermined and preset time, coffee would be steaming hot and waiting when I got up, but really wouldn’t that just take the joy out of the whole process of making and savouring that first sacred cup of coffee in the morning, what a silly and redundant invention I thought.

Finally, I sat down with my cup of coffee realizing for some mysterious reason I was running a bit late that morning. As I relaxed with my coffee and read some of my text messages from earlier I thought that after I finished with the laundry and made the bed, I could do a quick once over of reorganizing and cleaning out the garage...shouldn’t take too long.