So I spent today making sums. This is because an angry client came knocking with a project which (for reasons that I promise will not interest you, and did not really interest me either) had been dragging on for 18 months in the hands of five writers who I can only guess were rescued from a Russian mail order bride catalogue or a rehab for injured circus bears. Client finally realised, today, that it had to be redone from scratch. By me. And wanted it completed today. By me.Unfortunately I suffer from a rare form of involuntary muscular contraction which occasionally forces my jaw to form words I do not mean. In this case, I meant to say “Are you completely fucking insane? These documents were finger-painted by sea-cows!” but instead my lips went: “Ok, sure. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
It only took me about three seconds to realise the consequences of my mistake, but by that time it was too late. So, because I am a sensible person, I did the only sensible thing, which was to freeze in terror and immediately go onto Facebook and tell everyone I knew OMG I HAVE SO MUCH WORK I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M GOING TO DO PLS HELP GUYS SRSLY. Which in turn led to a friend thoughtfully distracting me by asking what she should do with her hair.
Of course, this was a situation in which I did know what to do, so I did what all good friends do – listened without judgement, although I clearly had the answer neatly stored in my multi-faceted brain – and offered helpful insights without forcing her hand. Because I am a woman of both precision and generosity of spirit, I illustrated my objective report using a number of advanced statistical models.
And because I realised you might be wondering about how to style your new haircut, I decided to share it with you.*
Hypothesis
a) You are a person who washes your hair regularly and styles/ blow-dries it.
b) Towel-drying, brushing and styling your hair takes approximately 15 minutes, if you are reasonably quick.
c) There are 24 hours in a day and 364 ¼ days in a year.
d) Our generation’s life expectancy has increased from +- 80 to well over 90, meaning the average person has approximately 80 solid blow-drying years.
Calculation
If you spend 15 min per day blow-drying your hair, that’s 1,75 hours of your life each week, which is 638,75 hours a year, and if you live to be 90 that means you've wasted 51 100 hours or 5,8 years blowing hot air at yourself.
Conclusion
Let the little fuckers curl.
Of course, once you start this line of thinking, it’s only a matter of time before your brain starts taking some logical leaps and your heart starts sinking at the thought of your life ending, one miserable, procrastinatory moment at a time. If, as I do, you spend inordinate amounts of time Googling random factoids, you will already know that the average person spends six months of their life licking stamps, or that you will probably spend 27 years of your life asleep (50 if you’re me). Or, at a conservative estimate, 86 days shaving your legs.
You will also spend six months on the loo (10 years if, like mine, your toilet is the quietest place in your house), 2,5 years with a headache (more if you’re an asexual housewife, presumably), 13 years watching TV (50 if you’re American), and four years standing in queues (eight if you’re South African and it’s Home Affairs).
But what about those other things that sneak up on you? Like drooling, staring into space, or trying to figure out new ways to annoy taxi drivers?** Or lying comatose on a heap of dirty laundry, watching Walker Texas Ranger?
I am now 29, and a series of foolproof calculations has led me to the sobering realisation that I spend:
- half a month every year on Facebook,
- a month every year looking up random crap online, like the history of facial transplants or the longest dog ever recorded (nine feet from nose to tail – it was a Newfoundland/ Great Dane cross),
- 22,8 days a year in traffic,
- 15 days a year napping (naps being snoozes that fall outside of the normal eight-hour sleep night),
- at least nine days a year on a treadmill,
- 8,5 days a year swearing because I can’t find something,
- eight days a year re-reading Harry Potter books,
- eight days a year cleaning,
- five days a year making truly terrible puns,
- four days a year in the bath (I was hoping for more, actually),
- four days a year eating cereal (see above comment),
- 2,5 days a year SMSing,
- 2,5 days a year looking up Dolly Parton quotes,
- two days a year closing cupboard doors my girlfriend hasn’t noticed she’s about to bang her head on,
- 45 days a year lying on the laps of various people I love, and
- 438 hours a year whimpering to Anna that I want chocolate.
My only hope is clearly learning to multi-task (e.g. making puns on the toilet, or closing cupboard doors while chewing). But it's a long road ahead, and I fear the strand of optimism is a thin one.
* Well, if you are reading this, you are probably Anna. Hi, fan.
** Though this is a worthy enough cause to justify at least 12 years of dedicated effort.
