Multitasking Moms

I am getting stupider. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t all that smart to begin with, but over the last few years I have actually felt myself dumbing down tremendously. I can pinpoint the exact moment it started happening, too: My first day as the stay-at-home dad.

Back when I was an engineer and had an office job, I was actually pretty good at getting things done. I would knock out tasks left and right and check off the to-do list every day. Now that I’m in charge of the house, I can’t find my socks. Seriously, I have like two pairs left and they don’t match.

I have always blamed multitasking on my recent inability to do anything well. I’ve told my wife for years that my brain does not have the ability to do two things at once. I can do one thing adequately or two things very poorly. Those are my choices.

Well, now it turns out that my inability to multitask has been validated. Hooray! Dr. Labcoat and his research team at the University of Stanford-or-Somewhere recently published a groundbreaking study that proves, among many other things, that funding is somehow still available for college brain studies. Also that no one’s brain has the ability to do two things at once. The study found that people who thought they were good at multitasking actually multitasked worse than people who normally tend to focus on one task at a time.

They also found that multitasking during cognitive tests actually reduced performance on those tests as much as smoking marijuana. I think that part of the study was done in Colorado. When the Stanford researchers contacted them for follow-up data, the Colorado team replied, “Huh?”

Add all that to the fact that they believe more studies will prove that multitasking actually causes brain damage, and... hang on, I have to go change the laundry.

This news is huge! I finally have some concrete scientific proof to point to when my wife questions my inability to function. It’s not me, honey, it’s the kids. There’s three of them and they all want stuff at the same time. They’re to blame, not me. It’s science.

As an example of what I’m talking about, here’s a typical conversation between me and my wife when she gets home from a long day at work:

Her: “What’s for dinner?”

Me: “Sorry, Son Number Three’s shoelace broke this afternoon, so I haven’t gotten around to planning dinner yet.”

Her: “Uh... it’s 6:45.”

Me: “Have you seen my socks?”

See what I mean?

Mother’s Day is this weekend, and as we celebrate all those stay-at-home moms, all those working moms, and all those single moms who do everything all at once, let’s remember this multitasking study. The fact that they can get anything done at all is a sheer miracle. The amount that they do accomplish for their families is a testament to how awesome they really are.

They could probably find a cure for cancer if we just left them alone for a few hours.

So to all you moms out there - Happy Mother’s Day! Take the day off and go smoke some dope or drink a couple bottles of wine. It will actually be better for your brain than dealing with the kids. You can find a cure for cancer some other day.

You know, come to think of it, those two pairs of socks I still have might match if I just swapped their partners...

See, this is what I’m talking about. What’s for dinner?

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Throwing Money Away

The other day I was at Sports Authority picking up a baseball duffle bag for Son Number Three. They have a no-frills $20 version that has a long pocket for your bats, and a main pocket for your glove and helmet. I made sure the shoulder strap fit me comfortably, since he is five years old, so inevitably, if I want the bag to make it all the way from the car to the field, I will end up carrying it myself. It went over my shoulder just fine. Sold!

I went to check out, and the girl scanned the barcode on the bag. Beep went the computer, and she read the screen, then looked up at me and asked, “Would you like to buy a protection plan for this item? If anything happens to it in the next two years, we will replace it for free. It’s only six dollars.”

I looked at the screen in front of me. $19.99

I looked at her, to make sure she wasn’t kidding. She wasn’t.

I asked, “What if I lose it? Will you replace it, and all of its contents, including my cell phone and wallet?”

“No, the protection plan doesn’t cover loss, or other items. Just damage.”

Hmm… Let me think about this for a minute. You want me to insure a $20 nylon bag for a third of its value against the off chance that something might happen to it that you wouldn’t already cover in your standard returns policy? Good one.

“No, thanks,” I politely declined.

I left the store shaking my head. Could there be a worse use for my money? As it turns out, there is something worse. Something much worse, and I didn’t have to wait too long to find out what it was.

That night, cleaning up after dinner, I pulled the trash can out from under the kitchen sink and stopped dead in my tracks. There, sitting right on top of the refuse, was eleven dollars. A five and six ones.

“What the… Why is there money in the trash can!?!” I inquired rather loudly, holding up the sticky bills, my gaze fixed upon the likely culprit, Son Number Three.

My wife gasped, “Oh my gosh, no. That was me. I did that last night. Whoops.”

“Huh!?!”

“I had a lot going on!” she explained.

“Huh!?! You had a lot going on? So, you threw money away… literally? Do I need to keep digging? Is there more? Should I go paw through the outside trash bin?”

“No, of course not,” she answered, slightly indignantly. “That was the only time.”

“How do you know!?!” I asked, exasperated, and marveling at the fact that she thought there was any room for indignation on the part of someone who was just found to have thrown money in the trash can.

I stood there in shock. A whole new world had opened up. I had never even dreamed it was possible to actually throw money away. I mean, literally throw it away, until now. A chill shot through me. What if we were rich? I never fully understand where all the money goes, but now a new scenario was possible. What if we could be rich, but my wife keeps throwing money away, keeping us in a perpetual state of “not even close to rich.”

After I got through shuddering at that thought, and regained some amount of composure, I asked the next obvious question.

“Are you pregnant?”

“What? Of course not!”

“I’m just asking, because of all the times I found the remote control in the refrigerator.”

“That only happened once!”

(Once per week, maybe.)

“I promise, this was a one-time thing. I just got very busy. Number Two owed me money for duct tape.” (The boy goes through a tremendous amount of duct tape. So much so, that we stopped supporting his habit.) “I got the money out of his piggy bank, and I was throwing something else away right after that.”

OK. I understand the mechanics of the accident, but that still doesn’t explain why you didn’t know that it happened. I mean, I have been incredibly busy. So busy that my head was spinning, in fact, and I still never came within a mile of putting U.S. currency in the trash can, let alone leaving it there.

My wife always makes fun of me for being a terrible multi-tasker, and she is right. Forget about two things at once. Anyone who can do one and a half things at the same time is a better multi-tasker than me. But I think she needs to cool it on the criticism now. No matter what you tell me, I am going to seriously doubt your ability to focus on multiple tasks after I find out you literally throw money in the trash.

This has been a fairly traumatic event for me, psychologically. It’s one thing when I come home and find out you bought an extended warranty for the couch. It’s quite another when I find out that throwing money in the trash is not only a possibility, but it has happened. I’m a wreck. It’s always in the back of my mind. I now stop and look into every trash can in the house when I pass by. I can’t even bring myself to look in the shredder.

Trash day is going to be interesting.

“Can you dump it in slowly? I want to watch. You know, just in case we’re really rich and I don’t know it.”

“Get the hell off my garbage truck!”

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back, dammit!

The Just a Smidge Anthology (Volume I) has arrived!
Get your copy today for only $0.99!
Go get your copy of "The Tree of Death, and Other Hilarious Stories" for your mobile device’s free Kindle, Nook, or iBooks app. You’re going to love it!