procrastination

(sung to the tune of carly simon's "anticipation")

(well, not really, cause i doubt that what i'm writing will be poetic enough to set to music. but i was struck by the fact that procrastination and anticipation rhymed pretty well, . . . )

it was quite dark at 5:23 this morning when hon woke me up. "come here, quick! i smell smoke!"

well, few things are scarier than waking up to the smell of smoke. first things you think about are your kids . . . they're fine. they don't live here anymore; your dogs . . . better find them quick in case the fire's in the house. no problem there. they're under foot as soon as we get out of bed; your valuables . . . well, for what they're worth. i quickly grabbed my red sox hat; and ultimately you gather your wits about you and figure out the fire's not in your house.

we stepped out into the back yard, looked east through the outback, and through the dense fog created by the smoke, we can see flashing lights. lots of flashing lights. and a flame shooting up through the smoke now and again. and the fire trucks aren't far away. maybe a couple hundred yards.

first thing i think of is hog wild barbecue. (thanks to spell check, i recently learned how to spell barbecue. i'd always struggled with it. barbaque didn't look right. barbeque looked ok, but not perfect. so did a spell check on a blog post and finally got it right. barbecue.) hog wild barbecue is a relatively new place opened just across the outback from us. we could walk there in a minute and a half. but since the streets aren't quite as direct, we could drive there in, oh, ten minutes or so.

just about every time i drive by there i think to myself, "self, one day you should stop there and try their barbecue." but i always seem to have somewhere to go. or i'm coming back from someplace. as a result, i've never been there. and i've learned since i've been in oklahoma that some of the best barbecue ever is to be found in little, out of the way, locations. and this seems to be the ideal setting for some surprisingly succulent pulled pork. or smoked brisket.

and now we have a fire. and the entire neighborhood is thick with smoke. and the weird thing is, the smoke smells a whole like like barbecue. so, of course i'm thinking that the fire is the hog wild joint burning down. makes sense, doesn't it? here's a place that has some sort of real wood smoker, probably burning all night to cook up the meat to serve today. would seem plausible that a fire could start from that.

since the smoke smells so laden with barbecue, what else can i assume besides the hog wild joint is aflame? now it's gonna be gone before i've had the opportunity to try it out. procrastination may have cost me some really great food. rats.

but wait. hon's turned the tv on. news. and the fire isn't at hog wild, it's in the apartment complex behind it. what great news!

now i'm wondering what else i might have missed because of procrastination. for example: yesterday afternoon it was hot out. one hundred and three, or so. it was wednesday. powerball night. and normally on wednesday i run over to barnes, a throw-back little market that no doubt inspired the idea of today's convenience stores. owned by barnes. i'm thinking that's his last name, but that's all he's called. the others who work there just call him barnes. he appears to be eighty something and still works twelve hours a day or so. anyhow, i felt i should drive down to barnes and get my wednesday night powerball ticket. but it was hot out. and i decided i'd wait til saturday to get my lottery ticket. means i missed wednesday night's drawing. procrastination could have cost me 45 million bucks.

who knows what else i might have missed because of procrastination? maybe if i'd done this then instead of when, if i'd done that now instead of then, or maybe if i'd just gone somewhere a little bit sooner . . . hmmmmmmm. but i can tell you one thing: as soon as the fire department takes down the blockades to the area, i'm gonna go to hog wild for lunch. or maybe i'll just wait until tomorrow.