Why I’m In A Hurry

Sunday. 1:30 PM. I’m rushing to the grocery store for the second time in two hours.

Rushing. Hurrying. Again.

As I’m driving, I begin to ponder upon my nearly constant need to hurry.

So many people have said, for so many years, that we as a people need to slow down; that our pace is killing us. I believe that to be true. I’ve long lamented the fact that in this age of amazing technological advances, we have less leisure time than ever. The 1950’s lied to us, claiming that science and industry would give us more time to enjoy ourselves and live richer lives.

But still, I’m rushing. I’m well aware of the fact that my driving like a maniac and passing cars (in a relatively safe manner, of course) will probably net me 45 seconds to one minute of reclaimed daylight.

And in my measured opinion, I do in fact need those 45 seconds.

For in my mind I have resolved my need to rush just now, and can extrapolate this situational need to nearly every other rushing situation I’ve experienced as a dad.

Let’s back up a bit to the start of the day.

Things really began just before church. My wife was at work for the day, meaning I was solely in charge of three teenagers and a five-year-old. I’d already taken one teenager to the zoo, where she’s a volunteer. She’d be staying there most of the day.

When I got back, I got Michael and myself ready for church. Michael’s remaining sisters were not up to going to church, and I was not up to fighting with them about it. Instead, I left them a list of chores. This is our standard practice: go to church, or do good works.

On the way back from church, I stopped at the store to get a few things. One daughter had volunteered to make sandwiches for dinner, which sounded fine to me. But while at the store I realized that my wife would have had a sandwich for lunch, and I can’t abide meal repeats. So I decided to make pizza instead. Michael asked for a kid-style TV dinner (one that has chicken nuggets and pudding with sprinkles) for his lunch, and I obliged.

Upon arriving home, I see that the girls have done their chores, but only to about a C+ level. I give them a quick review of proper vacuuming and dish-washing procedure, and begin unloading the groceries.

At this point, the race began.

I realize that I have a short amount of time to make pizza dough, because it takes half an hour to get going, and four hours to rise properly. Timing is everything. But first I have to make Michael’s lunch.

The phone rings, it’s my wife, asking me how things are going. Michael wanders over to one of his sisters and picks a fight. My wife doesn’t need a direct answer to her question, as she can hear the rather thunderous admonishments I have to deliver.

I turn over Michael’s lunch prep to other sister while I get things ready for pizza dough making. Have to clean the stove top. Have to clean a few more dishes. Daughter and I are trying to avoid each other in the kitchen.

I get the yeast started, and then discover I’m out of flour.

Not good.

I have to get flour, NOW. There is no alternative.

I’m left with a big quandary: leave Michael here and be more efficient at the store, or take him with me and risk the possibility of being so distracted by his continual stream of questions that I come out of the store with frozen peas and wart remover instead of flour.

To further complicate things, I have to go to the store that’s farther away because I also need to pick up a prescription that cannot wait until tomorrow.

Time is of the essence. I decide to leave him home. I can be back in fifteen minutes if I don’t have any hindrances. And I’m going to need every blessed second of that time in order to get the dough finished on time so that I can put Michael down for a nap at the right time and get to the other projects I have to work on, then pick up my other daughter, fire up the oven, prepare the ingredients, make the pies and serve them up on time.

The day is essentially schedule-driven. Miss a step, and chaos reigns.

“I’m going to the store,” I tell my daughter L. You two keep an eye on Michael, please.”

Her eyes get wide as saucers. I understand her fear. When he finishes his lunch, he’ll be a free radical, flitting through the house causing untold mayhem until I get back. There’s no telling what he might do to them, the house or himself while I’m gone. When he’s tired and bored, Michael is a juggernaut.

Which is why I need to hurry.

NEED to hurry.

And as I do, I naturally get behind every slow driver in Portland. It’s as if they have some sort of cosmic twitter feed that alerts them to a man in a rush, and guiding them all to congregate in front of me on the street that I need to traverse.

Get to store. Get flour. Get prescription. Hurry. The checker at the store noticed that I didn’t have Michael with me.

“Left him at home this time?”

“Yes, with his sisters. Which is to say I don’t have much time.”

“He sure is a ball of energy,” she says. My son can officially claim infamy.

I made it home after seventeen minutes, with flour and prescription, and fortunately Michael had been good for his sisters.

And while I was able to pick my schedule back up and forge ahead, the rest of the day went similarly, most notably when I was in the midst of actually baking pizzas and had to keep checking in my zoo volunteer daughter as her pick-up time moved from 4:30 to 5:30 to 6:00 to 6:20, keeping in mind that we all had to be finished with dinner by 7:30 so two of my daughters would be ready to head back to their mom’s by 8:00.

Such is life, and why throttling back is not an option.

And even though many may opine about its pointlessness, or perhaps even wag at you the finger of reproof, every mom and dad out there understands exactly what I mean: hurrying is an inescapable aspect of parenting.