Knocked Off Schedule by a Year-Old Calendar

My wife discovered just the other day why I was such a dreadful procrastinator. She claimed I was growing worse, and that this year I have been worse than ever. It used to be that I was only about two or three hours tardy in getting around to doing something I had promised I would do promptly.

This year, I was at least a day late in doing what I said I’d do. I missed a dental appointment by one day. Several luncheons with friends were missed. But the most serious oversight, which would have resulted in a fat penalty, was my failure to meet the county’s unsecured property tax deadline on my beloved little sloop, Herald Bird.

Fortunately, my wife discovered the tax bill on my desk the day it was due, wrote out the check and made a special trip to the post office to mail it.

You can imagine I heard from her about it when I got home that night! “How can you you be so negligent?” she complained.

I tried to explain to her that I never paid that tax until the final due date because I didn’t see any reason for the county to have the use of my money until it was necessary. After all, I pointed out reasonably, they don’t pay me interest on the use of my money.

“Well, if it weren’t for me you’d have paid them plenty this year. How could you overlook it?”

I was, frankly, puzzled. Annually, I had always methodically noted the due date on my calendar, along with other important appointments, such as with the dentist and lunches with friends.

I produced my calendar and showed her the square where I had written down the tax deadline. “There, you see, it isn’t due until tomorrow.”

She looked at my entry. “The date is correct, but the day isn’t,” she observed.

Then it dawned on her. I had been using a 1985 calendar. For nine months I’d been a day behind in all of my appointments!

I’m feeling lots better now about my mental condition.

In retrospect, there was one appointment I wish I hadn’t gotten right, because I had disgraced myself and I’m sorry about it. My friend Richard Simon had phoned to invite my wife and me to dinner at his home. He had said to come at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday. He didn’t give Saturday a date. So when I jotted the appointment down on my calendar I naturally got it in the correct day, although the date was off a day.

The Simons served us and some other friends a lovely dinner, then we all went into the living room to see Richard’s slides of a vacation somewhere in a foreign land from which they had recently returned.

I can’t remember where Richard went because I fell soundly asleep during his slide show. What’s more, I snored. And my wife gave me an awful dig in the ribs, and I had growled at her before I dozed off once more.

Home slides and home movies are one of the finest soporifics I know. A couple of drinks before a dinner, a fine meal, the host’s descriptions of his trip in the gentle darkness and the flashing and clicking of the films all add up to a wonderful lullaby.

I’m certain Richard’s pictures were interesting and expertly composed. My wife says they were. I know it’s an awfully rude way to treat a friend.

I haven’t heard of anybody using the wrong calendar for nine months, but I have heard of other knee-jerk sleepy heads at other people’s showings of their vacation pictures.

I suggest for those of us similarly afflicted that the polite way to deal with our problem is either to beg off from the invitation or send a written note to our host (with copies to pass around to the other guests) ahead of the party, explaining that no matter how great the vacation or how exotic the pictures, we promptly fall asleep during the first few frames.

The reason is that we suffer from an incurable malady, known as cinema-somnolency. So please forgive us.