Sasee Magazine

I’m not sure when I found time to compile this list, I think it was somewhere in between cooking dinner, folding laundry and checking e-mail. Apparently, I am not alone. Surveys often reveal that the one thing women crave, even more than our feel-good staples of chocolate, massages and new clothes, is the very thing that we cannot have – more time. And they needed a survey to find that out? Any woman on the street could have told them the same thing, albeit accompanied by a roll of the eyes as she stopped herself from blurting out, “What sort of stupid question is that?” I know this because I have never met another woman with more time on her hands than she knows what to do with.

I feel compelled to add at this point that chocolate, massages and new clothes are all good substitutes, but in the absence of free time, their feel-good value is compromised. Take the massage: The last time I had one, it was a Valentine’s Day gift. Three re-schedules and four months later, I squeezed it in two days before the coupon expired. I rushed through that morning’s errands, arrived with one minute to spare, and mentally planned my shopping list and the next three nights’ dinners while the masseuse, in one hour, tried to undo knots of stress that took months to create. Wondering how much to tip consumed the final ten minutes before getting dressed and leaving there achy and dragging. The magic had all but vanished by the time I reached the produce aisle, but at least I already knew what to buy. At that point, I was more excited about my list than my massage. My list is my friend.

As for the other “feel goods,” shopping for new clothes requires staring at our reflection for uncomfortable amounts of time. This produces the female knee-jerk reaction of mumbling and whining as we confront our body-image hang ups. Hopefully, what we dream of happens, and we discover that one magical piece that makes our hip size melt away as we stand, captivated, by the attractively-dressed woman in the mirror. Sold! For the following hour, our spirits soar until post-purchase dissonance kicks in and the shopping high is replaced by how we can justify or lie about our new purchase. That leaves chocolate. Thankfully, even a rushed chocolate is better than no chocolate at all.

So that brings me to the list. Fifty is just the tip of the iceberg but the buzzer on my drier just went off, and I haven’t even peeled the potatoes yet. If only I had more time…

Fifty signs you may be too busy:

1. You can’t remember the last time you washed a head of lettuce
2. You have left the house wearing mis-matched shoes
3. Clean clothes don’t always make it out of the basket
4. Your favorite hair style is a pony tail
5. You have never cooked 99% of the recipes you save
6. You become the road-runner during December
7. Your kids think home-made comes out of a box
8. What do you mean eight hours of sleep?
9. Starbucks is a necessity not a luxury item
10. You use legal pads to make your lists
11. You cancel dental appointments at least twice
12. You dream of hiring a “wife”
13. You know what the scratch and sniff test is
14. You still have unopened boxes from your last move
15. You can’t remember the last time you cooked a new recipe
16. Paper plates are not just for cook-outs
17. Arriving two minutes before is early; ten minutes means you could have run another errand
18. You hand-iron your clothes
19. You record Rachel Ray
20. You have cut your own hair
21. You only use drive-thru
22. You have never emptied your inbox
23. You forgot at least one birthday this year
24. You are re-considering the tackiness of the mass Christmas e-mail
25. You buy any magazine touting “10 Ways to Organize Your Life”
26. It makes no difference
27. You use your oven for storage
28. Your house has a magazine tree
29. You can’t function without a list
30. You have stacks of pre-recorded, unwatched TV shows
31. You never did sort those photos
32. You can’t remember what you had for dinner two nights ago
33. Who said the TV can’t baby-sit?
34. You’d hire a cleaner but would be too afraid to tell your mother
35. You get sick when you go on vacation
36. You look at the sell-by date before you eat from your fridge
37. You can’t watch TV without multi-tasking
38. Thank goodness for leftovers!
39. You have bought the same magazine twice
40. Recipes with more than five ingredients don’t stand a chance
41. You are still recycling the same seven dinner ideas
42. You use your microwave more than your oven
43. You know what instant potato tastes like
44. You have “obstacle” dreams in which you struggle to get somewhere or do something
45. You put it back if it’s not tumble-dry
46. Sometimes you forget how old you are
47. You vacuum your shower
48. The only time your house gets a good clean is when you have guests coming
49. You have taken dirty clothes back out of the basket
50. You were interrupted at least twice reading this

Or worse, you never got this far but plan to just as soon as you have some free time…