I Crastinate like a Pro

Posted on Feb 7, 2017 by headinablender

I hate my days off.

Up until a month ago my wife and I had the same days off work; Tuesdays and Wednesdays. However, her shift changed and now she has the traditional Saturday and Sunday off.

To many, the thought of having time off work without their significant other is a dream come true, but there’s only so much I enjoy doing alone…and it’s getting really sore.

Now, I hate to be sickly sweet here, but my wife and I have an awesome marriage. Spending time without her is like watching anything with the Kardashians in it; a pointless waste of time. In addition, Tuesday is the day I Skype my family back in England so my wife is missing out on that too.

I would love to say something hilariously sarcastic and biting about in-laws and how she’s dodged a bullet, but alas…she really does love my family and vice versa.

I’m telling you, anyone looking in on our marriage from the outside is usually reaching for a bucket.

So, today is Tuesday, my wife left early for work, and I Skyped my family at the normal prearranged times. Due to the eight hour time difference, the Skype calls are very early in the morning so, historically (well, for the last month at least), I go back to sleep afterwards. However, instead of having a nap for a couple of hours, I usually end up sleeping for ages and missing most of the day.

Either that or I end up down a YouTube rabbit hole and still end up doing none of the things I had planned to do.

Yet I always seem to end up sore.

This is all made worse by a fuzzy head usually brought on by oversleeping or concentrating on a screen without blinking.

Well, today was going to be different. Today I was going to do some washing [laundry], tidy up, go to the gym and get my hair cut. So today I set myself an alarm to only sleep for an hour.

Genius, right?

Wrong.

Instead of only sleeping for an hour, I decided to snooze button my way through four hours of sleep.

It’s become another typical Tuesday…or, should I say ‘Snoozeday’? Huh? Get it? Snoozeday? Anyone?

(holds up hand for a high five he will never get, and all that can be heard is the sound of crickets as a lone tumbleweed rolls by)

I don’t even have the time or the energy to get my hair cut. This is an activity that involves me sitting down on the way to the Barber, sitting down while they do all the work, and then sitting down all the way home…and I still can’t be bothered.

Instead I’m slouched in bed, looking at the clock and justifying to myself that I simply don’t have the time to do anything.

Well, except write this post.

Priorities.

Now, where’s that box of tissues?

When the Candy is finally Crushed

Posted on Feb 24, 2015 by headinablender

Tonight, as I was perusing Facebook in bed, I saw this post on my newsfeed:

Sooooooo friggin pee’d off with myself right now!!! Feel like crying!!! Bloody dropped, smashed, shattered and well and truely broke my tablet. So not a happy bunny right now!!!!

I felt the need to comment on this tragedy…and by tragedy I don’t mean the event itself, but rather the shameful use of grammar and the misspelling of the word ‘truly’.

I replied with:

So no more Candy Crush invites??
#silverlining

That will go down as well as her tablet did.

I do feel bad for her though.

Truely.

An alarming tale…about bloody time!

Posted on Mar 4, 2014 by headinablender

I have two alarm clocks.

Aside from being a notorious snoozer, there is a sane reason behind this.

In the past I have overslept and been very late for work due to random power cuts in the night; resetting my alarm clock and leaving it entirely redundant by disabling the very important functions of ‘alarm’ and ‘clock’.

Is there anything worse than waking up and being taunted by the L.E.D. display flashing the time that has elapsed since the power cut occurred?

(Flash) Ha ha, I was reset 2 hours and 12 minutes ago!

(Flash) Ha ha, I was reset 2 hours and 13 minutes ago!

(Flash) Ha ha, I was reset 2 hours and 14 minutes ago!

(Flash) Ha ha, I was reset 2 hours and 15 minutes ago!

Yeah, cheers.

Now how do I set the time on this bastard again?

To combat this power cut issue I bought a battery powered digital alarm clock as a backup, although I couldn’t completely replace my alarm clock in case the batteries in my new one died in the night; creating the same problem I was desperately trying to remedy.

So I kept both.

I surmised that the chances of a power cut happening on the exact same night as the batteries dying were very slim.

Then again, this is ME we’re talking about.

Oh wait, hang on; I have my phone alarm too. Dammit. Ok, let me start again…

I have three alarm clocks.

Aside from being a notorious snoozer, there is a sane reason behind this.

I usually set the alarms on the two clocks slightly offset from each other so they don’t both go off at the same time. I figured I was more likely to wake up if there was a constant abuse of sound from which I couldn’t recover. However, I soon discovered that I now just hit two snooze buttons instead of one; and I’ve become quite good at it, with ninja like precision.

Pa-chow!! >click<

However, for some reason my phone does a better job at waking me up than both my clocks do. This might have something to do with the overly complicated process of snoozing it by sliding an icon across the screen in a particular direction whilst holding it upright and singing the national anthem of Hungary or something. By the time I’m done snoozing the little shit I’m wide awake and angry.

As a result I’ve kept my two alarm clocks as they act as a ‘heads up’ that my phone will be waking me up soon. They’re like the appetizers before the main course or the shit warm up act at a show. Plus, I get a massive sense of satisfaction from pressing snooze on my clocks and then nuzzling back into my pillow.

Except for this morning. This morning was an epic fail.

Let me tell you why.

My alarm clocks had been set thus:

Mains powered alarm clock – 6:00am
Battery powered alarm clock – 6:04am
Phone alarm clock – 6:15am

As we had to be out of the house no later than 6:45am.

I woke up shortly after 6am due to the usual ear piercingly harsh beeping from my alarm clock. Well, I say ‘beeping’, but it’s more like a “BLAARGP! BLAARGP! BLAARGP!” as if someone was fisting Wall-E with a goat.

I suppose that’s the point.

I reached out and pressed the snooze button, ready to nuzzle back down when I realised it wasn’t snoozing at all, and now neither was I.

“BLAARGP! BLAARGP! Baa!(Eh?) BLAARGP!”

I reached out again and pressed snooze. Nothing.

“BLAARGP! BLAARGP! BLAARGP!”

Ok, what the hell is going on? I lifted my head (getting serious now) and looked at this mutinous little turd as he Blaargp’d over and over, no matter how much I pressed the snooze button.

Pa-chow!! >click<

Pa-chow!! >click< >click< >click<

It was at this point I flicked the button to actually turn the alarm off. This is the button feared by severe snoozers like me as it can often result in days being lost, sometimes weeks.

Nothing. The sound of mechanical goat love continued.

“BLAARGP! BLAARGP! BLAARGP!”

My wife had woken at this point and sleepily asked, “What’s going on??”.

“I honestly don’t know! I can’t turn my alarm off! This has never happened before!”, I paused a moment before having a brainwave “Wait, I know what to do!”

I reached down and smugly unplugged the clock. Ha!

The alarm was still going!

“What the fuck? How is tha….oh, wait, it’s the wrong alarm clock.”

My wife laughed; mockingly.

I plugged the clock back in, snoozed the Blaargping offender and laid back down to nuzzle into my pillow.

“What time is it?” I heard from behind me.

I lifted my head again, ignoring the flashing L.E.D. that was saying ‘Ha ha, I was reset 2 minutes ago!’ and fumbled for the offender.

“6:11am.”

“What? It can’t be!”

“It is.”

“Are you sure??”

I checked again as it was possible I’d misread it. After all, I was tired, I had eye bogeys, I wasn’t wearing my glasses, it was dark and I was checking the time on the offending clock using the light from my mobile phone’s screen.

“6:11am, see?” I said, showing her the clock this time.

“You’re kidding! How is that possible? Shit!”

My wife was up and out of bed like a shot; the sound of “Shit shit shit” following her out of the bedroom, along the hallway and disappearing behind the bathroom door.

I was starting to wake up a little at this point, so I decided to set the correct time on my recently reset clock to match that of the offender. I then reached for my phone and checked the live online rail services to make sure our train was running on time this morning. I love rushing around to get to the station only to find the train is cancelled so we can spend 27 minutes on a cold frosty platform waiting for the next one instead of spending that time all warm and cosy in bed.

The train hadn’t been cancelled and was running on time.

Damn.

This was when I noticed something weird; the website wasn’t showing our train despite the fact it was due to leave in 45 minutes. In fact, it was only showing trains up to 6:30am, including ones that should’ve left half an hour ago, presented in future tense. That was when I noticed that the time wasn’t 6:11am; it was 5:11am.

Oh shit.

Shit shit shit.

I bolted out of bed and rushed to the bathroom, but I was too late; I could hear the sound of the shower behind the door. I gingerly stepped inside.

“Baby?” I said lightheartedly, hoping to set the mood for the conversation.

“What?” she curtly replied, setting the actual mood for the conversation.

“You’re not going to believe this”, I continued, rolling my eyes and chuckling slightly as if she should find the following piece of news ironically funny in some way.

“What is it?” she replied, not picking up on any of that whatsoever.

“It’s actually 5:11am.”

“I hate you.”

Fair enough.

I closed the door, went back to the bedroom and got back into bed. It was then that that thought dawned on me; if it wasn’t 6am yet, why did the alarm clock go off? I looked at the offender and it did indeed say 6:17am.

What the…?

The clocks don’t go forward for another 3 weeks or so.

I checked my phone; 5:17am.

I got out of bed and checked my watch; 5:17am.

I even went downstairs and checked both the kitchen and lounge clocks; both 5:18am (it took me a minute to get down there)

So why was my battery operated alarm clock an hour fast? It couldn’t be a mechanical fault with the hands or something because both clocks are digital. It must have been changed; but by who?

Also, it’s a bitch to change the time on the battery powered clock, so it couldn’t have been done by accident.

Hmm.

And yet, despite being awake a full hour earlier than we were supposed to be, we still left the house late and had to rush for the train.

Spider, man.

Posted on Jul 15, 2013 by headinablender

I have a fear of spiders.

I don’t care that everyone knows. I’m a 6ft tall, heavily tattooed man and I’m scared of teeny tiny eight legged beasties.

I can’t bring myself to pick one up if my life depended on it, instead resorting to the old ‘pint glass and envelope’ technique; followed up with moving through the house at great speed screaming “open the door/window quick quick quick QUICK QUICK!!”.

As you can see, I’m very butch and manly about it.

Mind you, in my defence, house spiders are big fuckers.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to attack my front garden which had grown to Jumanji proportions; towering above my kitchen window and plunging it in darkness. I knew something had to be done when I realised that recently I always seemed to be cooking at night, no matter what time of day it was.

So I donned some heavy duty gardening gloves, hired a local jungle guide called UmBongo*, messaged my family to tell them I love them and ventured out into the leafy unknown.

It’s obvious that as soon as you start to uproot all sorts of flora and fauna the local wildlife will scarper like chavs in Poundland, but never before have I seen so many different sizes and shapes of spiders in such a small area in such a short space of time.

Did I squeal like a girl and cry for my mum?

Nope.

For some reason, because I had heavy duty gloves on, I somehow felt a bit invincible. I even had the little shits crawling over my flip flopped feet and I simply brushed them away like I was channelling Chuck Norris.

This reminded me of those times when I was a kid trying to get to sleep and hearing a noise or creak in the darkness of my bedroom. I was shit scared and hid under the covers (with a little gap for oxygen of course) because that was somehow enough to protect me from a burglar, a monster or a fuck off massive chainsaw.

As I think back I realise how daft it was to think a duvet would protect me. How could a little bit of material make an appropriate barrier to the nastiness outside?

And yet here I was, a full grown man, with ‘magic gloves’, providing a lack of fear of anything with more limbs than me.

Except Tarantulas.

Definitely not Tarantulas.

Tarantulas can fuck off.

Seriously.

* Not true. As if I’d have a guide named after a popular children’s beverage that’s too orangey for crows….his name was actually Neville**

** Also not true

You snooze you lose.

Posted on Sep 28, 2012 by headinablender

This morning I did that rare thing of waking up a whole minute before my alarm went off. This instantly sent a rush of mixed feelings through me.

On one hand I’m as chuffed as chips that my body clock is so cool it can tell when I’m supposed to be getting up. If it had a voice it would casually lean over to me and smugly say “who needs a clock when I’m this good?”, but it can’t…so I’ll shut up.

On the other hand I’m deprived of that gorgeous sensation when you realise you’ve got hours left of sleep and can snuggle back into your warm pillow and rejoin your old maths teacher and her pet unicorn, Alan, as they try and navigate through your old school (which looks suspiciously like your place of work) en route to finding the washing machine that will finally clean the chicken you’re hoping to cook for dinner when Michael Jackson comes to visit.

(Dreams; they make no sense. They’re daft and ridiculous, and yet we don’t question or challenge them, despite most if us being intelligent and rationally minded individuals. No, instead we just blindly go with it. A lot like watching TOWIE really).

So I was a bit annoyed laying there in bed looking at my alarm clock as I knew that going back to sleep wasn’t an option. In 60 seconds or less I was about to be ripped from ‘Operation Chickenwash’ by some twat on the radio trying to be funny.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. (This minute is taking longer than usual)

And there it was. The loud and unfunny drivel from some mindless fool blaring out of my clock radio to remind me I had another exciting day in the office before the weekend.

I reach over, fumble a bit and -click-

The snooze button.

Aaaaaaaah, that’s better. See you in 9 minutes sucker.

By the way, why is it 9 minutes? Why not 10…or 8? I think it originated in Germany:

Klaus – “It is time to get up out of ze bed Hans”
Hans – “But I vant to sleep longer”
Klaus – “Ok, shall I vake you in a few minutes?”
Hans – “Nein”

I could be wrong of course…

But that said, I am the king of the snooze button, the lord of lazy, the duke of…well you get what I mean. At weekends I’ve been known to snooze for up to 4 hours. I love it. I can’t get enough of it. If only I could put a snooze button on people…that would be nice. Maybe I’ll have the word ‘snooze’ tattooed on my knuckles. At least I’ll get 9 minutes peace.

I then start doing that thing where I tell myself when I’m going to get up. It’s usually on one of the 5 minute intervals; for example…I’ll get up at quarter past. But then I accidentally snooze till 16 minutes past. Do I get straight up as promised? Do I fuck! Now I tell myself I’m going to get up at 20 past. But then the song on the radio is one of my favourites, so I’ll get up AFTER its finished and captain twat is back. Oh, but by then it’s 22 minutes past. Ok, I’ll get up at half past.

I was late leaving the house today.