Boredom is my weakness

I like to view myself as a connoisseur of arts and crafts that take considerable degrees of time and effort such as constructing sandcastles, screenplays, or the perpetual nightmare that is a house of cards. Everyone depends on me to restitch torn jeans, file taxes, babysit birds of paradise, and numerous balancing acts that can’t be managed by them. Naturally, when I finish a time-consuming project, I face a nigh-impenetrable wall in front of me named Boredom. 

I don’t get bored often but when it happens, it absorbs the magical gifts people swear embody everything I am. Think of it as an archnemesis similar to a mosquito if the blood-sucking pest were a massive creature that can hardly shimmy through the doorway and draws from your body when you feel there’s nothing to occupy your time. Then, start to picture that massive creature as an intangible force perched on your shoulders when another broken Tickle Me Erma is fixed. 

Boredom convinces or attempts to convince me to binge television and then, in one fell swoop, that television is suddenly a droll activity. Every time I gaze at a thread and needle, I imagine a skirt hem being sewn or a canary singing in its cage while I finally sew that gaping jean jacket hole shut. However, shortly after, I imagine myself bound by the thread and poked by the needle repeatedly as Boredom cackles and I switch on another pointless film. 

This film is an arthouse work with a two-note ditty that plays every five minutes and concerns a couple of friends prattling on about the complexities of everything and nothing on a New York rooftop. The guy is some aloof bachelor type on permanent vacation from his downtown retail job and the girl is a stoic bachelorette who writes perfume-soaked letters for hopeless romantics from the comfort of her two-room apartment. They are chain smokers who lean on the edge of the roof, dress like would-be 70’s punk rockers, and are pseudo-nihilistic to a pretentious fault; occasionally spitting on a Wall Street wannabe below and ducking to chuckle about it. 

While I receive a call for the latest odd job from friends or family, I imagine myself as the girl and the guy interchangeably, trying on their dialogue and the supposedly “cool” stances they cycle through. 

“Olivier, living is so passe or at least living like a banker with a death wish.”

I imitate his strange arch against the roof’s edge.

“I think we all have a death wish, Daph; investment banker or not.” 

I mimic her crouch and pretend to coddle a cigarette in the side of my mouth. 

I pantomime and such so long that I remember my friend’s request for baked macaroni and cheese at the end of the film. Boredom slinks into my head and deepens the complacent stretch across my sofa when the memory surfaces. 

“I can’t do this shit right now”, I blurt out and gasp because I rarely swear. 

Not only am I bored, but another monster also slips into the fray named Procrastination who is most likely Boredom’s fraternal or identical twin brother. Procrastination tears my cape off my back and breakdances on it while Boredom sits back and releases a hefty laugh. Hopefully, my friend doesn’t mind receiving a late baked macaroni and cheese because apparently, I can’t be bothered to do anything but watch another arthouse film, or at least that’s what Procrastination suggests. 

The next five arthouse films have at least one Olivier and Daph except they don’t take center stage. They’re more often than not background noise in coffee shops, underground rock mosh pits, or house parties and if they have larger roles, those roles are as the chronically sarcastic friend. None of the films have names or they don’t have names I care to remember because the characters’ dialogue is more than engrossing enough to latch onto despite the fact that they’re cut-and-paste copies across every scene. 

Now Boredom cracks his knuckles and leads me to shut off the television because watching the same arthouse films with slightly different for entertainment is old news. Once Procrastination is off my back, I can scramble to my feet and stare at the kitchen, thanking God I don’t have a smartphone to bide my time. I can use my laptop which is ALL the way in my bedroom and lethargy invites me to stay put which works for and against my desire to be productive. 

I scour the cabinets for some semblance of elbows, cheese I don’t have to grate, and a glass pan to hold the messy combination. I discover a box half-full of elbows, one bag each of shredded cheddar, and mozzarella cheese but the glass pan is a square pan one-foot every way around. Procrastination whispers that I should head to the store for a new one which might inevitably kill time and twist me away from my friend’s request. 

I nod my head and get to cooking with an egg, elbows, chunks of cheddar cheese in varied sizes as well as the shredded cheese, and condensed milk. I stir everything in a metal pot and remember my laptop is on my coffee table in the living room. This process would fly by with some music and that convinces me to scoop it up. 

Procrastination convinces me to scoop it up. 

I switch on some soft house music and stir everything while my legs are raving lightly enough not to disturb neighbors above or below. In a sharp instance, the apartment is flooded in strobe lights and the metal ladle transforms into a microphone as I mouth the words to the song that boom louder and louder before a sea of sweaty ravers. There is no macaroni and cheese or kitchen to cook it in when I leap into the mosh pit belting out the words when the smoke reintroduces me to responsibility and sets off sprinklers in the apartment. 

I head on my laptop and scramble to find a delivery service that offers baked macaroni and cheese. Neither the price nor the name of the driver concerns me because my friend wants baked macaroni and cheese and hopefully, breadcrumbs aren’t a dealbreaker. 

I hate myself and Boredom and Procrastination giggle in the corner at the chaos.