My J.T.D.T. Calendar

In my home there is a little cubbyhole, which I like to refer to as my office, and on the wall of this room there is a calendar. I call this calendar my J. T. D. T. calendar. It doesn't have any pictures of beautiful scenery, or any advertising. It simply has the date and days of the week along the left side of the page, with three ruled lines running from each date and day, all the way across the page, where I can write down, "Jobs To Do Today."

On the first day of the year I go through this calendar and make notes of dates I want to remember, such as birthdays, anniversaries, and when certain bills should be paid. Then as I go through the year, I work out a schedule of seasonal "Jobs To Do Today," like cleaning the leaves out of the gutter, covering the ventilating fans in the attic, or cleaning out the garage. This calendar keeps me on schedule, but it can also get to be a burden.

You see, I have just been diagnosed as having a disease that seems to be sweeping the country at this time.. It's called "O. A. D. S. (Old Age Deficit Syndrome). I don't know just what this all means, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is just a polite way of spelling A-L-Z-H-E-I-M-E-R'S. Anyway, these notes I have in my J.T.D.T calendar seem to bring up jobs faster than I can work them off, and I can't understand why, because I work all the time, and I am completely worn out at the end of every day.

Just last week I looked at my J. T. D. T. calendar and noted that I was supposed to trim the shrubbery in my front yard. I think to myself, this won't take long, so I started looking for my keys to unlock the garage and get my pruning shears. This key to my garage is on the same chain with my car keys and I know I had them yesterday. I check the pockets of the clothes I had on yesterday and don't find any keys, but I do find a fried chicken leg that I had wrapped in a napkin and brought home from the senior citizen's nutrition center. After about twenty minutes I find these keys in the drawer with the knives and forks, but while I am looking for them, I notice that there is some unopened mail on the table, which I had brought from the mail box the day before, so I put the keys down on the table and start going through the mail.

In this mail there are a few bills I need to pay, but most of it is junk, so I put this junk mail in the trash basket and notice that it is full. I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the trash, but then I think, since I am going to be near the mail-box when I take out the trash, I may as well pay the bills and put them in the mail-box, as I go out to empty the trash.

I finally find my checkbook on a chest of drawers in the bedroom, only to discover that I am completely out of checks. My extra checks are in my desk out in my office, so I go out there to get more checks, and discover a bottle of Coke I had been drinking. I am going to get my checks, but first I will put this coke in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the coke, I notice that the goldfish are at the top of the water, indicating that they are low on oxygen, so I decid I had better change the water on them before they die. I set the coke on the counter and there, under a stack of newspapers, I discover my computer glasses that had been missing for a week. I decide that I had better take my glasses out to my desk, but first I will change the water in the fish bowl. I put my glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and in so doing I find the TV-remote near the kitchen sink. I know that I will be watching TV tonight, so I will take the remote back in the living room where it belongs, but first I will change the water on the gold fish. I spill most of the water on the floor. So I put the remote back down and grab some paper towels, clean up my mess and then head down the hall, trying to remember what I had started out to do.

At the end of the day, the shrubs are not trimmed, the bills are not paid, the trash basket is still full, there is a warm bottle of coke sitting on the counter, there is a two-day old, fried chicken leg lying on my dressing table in the bedroom, the goldfish are dead for lack of oxygen, and there are still no checks in my check book. I can't find the remote or my glasses, and I don't know what I did with my car keys.

At this point I am totally exhausted, and I can't figure out why nothing was accomplished during the day.

In order to rest my tired and aching muscles, I sit down at my computer to see if I had any E-mail, and there I find a "Spam" message advertising a pill that is guaranteed to rejuvenate and add vim and vigor to the human body of any age. I decide right then and there that I will order me some of those pills, but first I will rest a few minutes. I lean over the keyboard of my computer with my head resting in my hands. I must have dozed off for when I rouse up, I discover that I have accidentally hit the delete button on my computer and erased the address of this wonderful pill.

Now, I am asking both of my readers to check their computer to see if they received this spam advertising. If either of you did get this message, please send me the address, as I sure need some kind of a rejuvenator.