Impspulse Control

They say you should never go shopping when you're hungry, and I say you should never make large, hard-to-retract decisions during the holiday season. Or on a Sunday night. That's when the hunger is there, for me -- nothing but devils on my shoulders and an additional small one on my head having Cheetos, all of them suggesting new life paths, new detours, Big Changes. None of them looking at a spreadsheet with monthly expenses on it or this year's healthcare spending or the Ten Year Vision or any such thing.

No, they're more likely to be trading ideas about opening a brewery or visiting the Arctic or finishing a novel--and not just FINISHING a novel, but sitting down tomorrow and doing NOTHING ELSE until it's done. And I would believe them, it would be Art, it would be me following my passion, except that the devils only come visit when nothing else seems like a good idea. Where are they when I'm having my raisin bran before work, or while I'm paying the bills or getting the kids up in the morning? They're not around then, when convincing me would take effort, take commitment. They're the worst kind of foul-weather friends--the kind who goad you into breaking something the day after you get dumped and who drive away when the cops come, or who cheer you up with vodka but only till your money runs out.

So instead of listening to that kind of horseshit, I'm spending an hour a day before work assembling a glass sphere, copper tubing, electrodes, a bait pan and a bamboo cage hung from a silver wire to create a trap for the little fuckers. And every holiday season and every Sunday night I'm going to hang it near the cat box and put a few Deferred Hopes and Momentary Discomforts into the bait pan and wait. When one of the little red guys flits down onto that soggy mass, ZAP.

Once I've stunned a few and have the cage full, into the river they'll go, and I can go back to methodically finishing my writing projects.



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