Socks

 I got stuck in a loop a few mornings back. The quad-pacertm on my electric toothbrush beeped to remind me to change the corner of my mouth in which I was scrubbing and I noticed that it had taken more than thirty seconds to pull one of my socks on. As is my wont, I began to fret that I was losing valuable seconds in my race to be ready to bike to work on time. 

To be fair, I was attempting this feat in the dark with only my left hand as my right was busy holding the toothbrush that was filling my mouth with minty-fresh foam and beeping every thirty seconds to remind me to switch quadrants of my mouth for brushing. 

And reminding me of just how long it takes me to put on my socks with one hand. In the dark. As my mind might or should have been focused on other things. 

But because every day is a race against time, I was hyper-aware of the need to clear my throat when I walked out to the kitchen to ask our Google Home Assistant to please put toilet paper on the shopping list. I wondered how much time I was saving compared to the seconds it would have taken me to scratch the letters "TP" on a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator. 

Still, I couldn't shake that thirty second threshold for putting on a sock. How was I going to scrape together any free moments in the course of my day if it took me a full  minute to pull on both my socks? 

As I moved through the rest of my routine that took me out into the world where my bicycle was waiting to carry me to work, I noted that this too was an act totally dependent on the efficiency of my mechanism. Opening the door, rolling the bike out into the dawn to the front gate, opening said gate and then taking a moment once I was astride to set the timer on my watch to count the minutes it would take me to pedal to school. 

Could I possibly make up any time after the sock debacle? 

In the galactic scheme of things, this is not a true crisis. The orbits of the celestial bodies I could observe with my naked eye were not affected by my malingering. The custodian and my principal didn't comment when I arrived before the sun was fully over the horizon. "What took you so long? Trouble getting your socks on?"

That didn't happen. Instead, I found myself with just enough time to sit down and craft this little essay for you, dear reader. 

Imagine how much better it could have been if I'd had more time.