Questionable Behavior

By Allison Adams 10-16-11 / Submitted to The Greeneville Sun on 10-16-11

Woe is me.

Whether I like it or not, I believe I have turned yet another page in the Book of Life.

Gone are the days when I used to sit and consider the explanations to profound questions like: “What is the meaning of life?” and “Why me, Lord?”

For me, now, those issues are no longer ponderable.

You won’t hear me asking, “Is there life on other planets?” because whatever the possibility is, it is of no concern to me.

Neither is learning how much wood a woodchuck could chuck, or who shot J.R.

And even though I still don’t know the answer, I no longer really wonder if fish sleep or why British people don’t sound British when they sing.

I have a more important mystery to solve.

These days the burning question I ask myself repeatedly is this: “Why did I come in here?”

I don’t care about the answers to thought provoking queries like “At a movie theatre, which arm rest is mine?” or “What was the best thing before sliced bread?”

The answers to those questions don’t matter to me when I can’t even remember why … I’m standing in my living room holding a pencil.

Am I alone?

All I really want to know is why I picked a specific moment to deliberately march to a particular place?

Is that asking too much?

I’ve learned, actually, that most of the time it is.

In these instances, which now happen regularly, I try to apply deductive reasoning in order to come up with an answer as to why, for instance, I find myself … in the garage carrying a tomato.

It’s never the obvious.

Nonetheless, I do try to unravel the riddle.

I quiz myself, asking: “What was I doing just before I ended up here?”

But most of the time I haven’t the foggiest idea.

As a general rule, when I realize I don’t know why I’ve turned up someplace, I’ve also forgotten what I was doing beforehand.

I’ve recognized that there is a very small window of opportunity for success when retracing one’s steps, and usually by the time I think to resort to self-cross-examination, that window has already slammed shut.

That was the case yesterday when I discovered myself … standing in the driveway with a light bulb in my hand.

Woe is me.

Did I already say that?

I would love to be consumed with wondering how one size can possibly fit all instead of trying to figure out why … I am camped out at my desk staring at a blank computer screen.

Was I going to Google something?

If so, what? “Why Am I Sitting Here?”

Anybody?

Oh, well.

At least while I sat at my computer waiting to discover why in the world I came to be perched there in the first place, I made use of the opportunity to write my column.

Whoa. Hang on.

You don’t think I meant to…?

Nahhhhhhhhh.