This morning, I sat down to work on my novel and realized that I hadn’t taken my ADD medication. I knew this because it was sitting on my desk. I looked around and realized I had nothing to wash it down. I also noticed my dirty coffee cup and my empty overnight oats jar. I have been eating out of jars lately. Please don’t ask why because I don’t know. Maybe the little jars lined up in the fridge give me a false sense of organization.
Since I was on my way to the kitchen for water, I picked up the dirty dishes, rinsed them, and opened the dishwasher. I heard the distinctive click that I had come to dread. The dishwasher was clean. In our family, unless there are extenuating circumstances, such as having nicked an artery or needing to be on a conference call in the next two minutes, the person who finds the clean dishwasher must empty it.
I considered rerunning it so someone else could find it clean. I also considered leaving my dirty dishes in the sink, but then my husband, Mark, would clean up my dishes, and I’d feel guilty. However, this week, Mark is out of town on business. I could leave my dishes and empty the dishwasher later, but my nephew, John, who lives with us, sees dirty dishes in the sink as an invitation to leave more dirty dishes. I’d have more dishes to clean up later. Resigned to emptying the dishwasher, I reached for the soap dispenser to wash my hands. The dispenser was empty.
I assumed there was no hand soap refill under the sink because I had used the last of it the last time the dispenser had run out of soap. Seeing that the paper towel holder was empty, I went downstairs to the garage where we store the soap and paper towels. I noticed a mountain of empty cardboard boxes when I entered the garage. Remembering that I came into the garage to get soap and paper towels, I retrieved them and placed them on the floor in front of the door that led into the house before I began breaking down boxes.
I wanted to get them out with tomorrow’s recycling before Mark returned and saw how much online shopping I’d done in his absence. I don’t usually do tons of online shopping, but the ADD medication that I’ve been taking for the last few months has an unfortunate side effect–compulsive shopping. The focus of my compulsion was Taylor Swift memorabilia.
I wasn’t looking for the items from her recent Eras tour or last year’s Midnights album. I wanted items from the two albums written during her pandemic “era.” The lyrics for folklore and evermore are poetry set to music. Before judging me, watch Folklore the Long Pond Studio sessions on Disney+ with closed captioning enabled. Items, including shirts, blankets, mugs, posters, etc., are no longer available except on second-hand websites like eBay. Everyone except scalpers on the online websites will be relieved to hear that my doctor changed my medication, so it’s no longer an issue.
I decided to break down the boxes rather than have Mark see all the “hard-to-find, rare, and valuable TS merchandise” shipped to our home since he left. If you’ve ever purchased second-hand items online, you know this involves stripping off multiple layers of packing tape because the boxes have been reused so often that the tape is the only thing holding them together.
With that task complete, I picked up the soap and towels, congratulated myself for placing them in front of the door so I wouldn’t forget them, and returned upstairs. After filling the soap dispenser, I opened the cabinet under the sink to put the soap away and discovered another refill. Given the disaster under the sink in our kitchen, there was no room for another bottle, so rather than putting the soap back in the garage, I combined the soap from the two bottles into one and put the old bottle in the overflowing recycling bin. Wishing I had taken the recycling down when I went for the soap and towels, and rather than postponing the inevitable, I picked up the bin.
As I was walking by my office, I saw the envelope with my car registration, so I picked it up because my registration had expired more than two months ago, and I didn’t want to risk a ticket. I emptied the recycling bin in the garage and put the stickers on my license plates. The car was locked, so I couldn’t put the registration card in the glove compartment along with the insurance card, which should be there but isn’t. Rather than going to get the key from my office upstairs, and further delay my novel writing, I tucked the registration under my wiper blade and returned to whatever I was doing…oh yes, emptying the dishwasher.
With that chore done, I tidied up the kitchen and returned to my desk to work on my novel. Then I noticed my ADD med sitting on my desk, but I needed something to wash it down. I returned to the kitchen to get water and miraculously returned to my office without mishap. Still, I might forget the car registration under the wiper blade and imagine it blowing away the next time I drive my car. I realized that I should put the registration where it belongs, so the next time I’m stopped for driving while distracted, I’ll have my registration.
With my registration safely inside the car and me finally back at my desk, I notice the morning is almost gone. Fortunately, I’ve chosen to have a sense of humor about something I can’t control. Besides, ADD is my superpower. How else would I have been able to work in Senate offices all those years with phones ringing and TVs blaring and still crank out a floor statement for my boss in less than 15 minutes?
I also learned that ADD isn’t a superpower when you decide to be an attorney in a law firm. Nor is it a superpower when you are an associate professor at a university and must publish journal articles with hundreds of tedious footnotes. In both environments, I had my own very quiet office, like I do now. Perhaps ADD will be a superpower again once I publish my first novel and have deadlines.
Writing a novel about a main character with ADD would be fun, but would it be funny? I could write it as a children’s book. The main character could be a mouse who wants a cookie, then milk to go with the cookie, and… Oh my gosh—is If You Give a Mouse A Cookie about ADD? I never realized that. I prefer the sequel—If You Give a Moose a Muffin. It may be my favorite because of the alliteration in the title or the illustrations. It includes a drawing of an antlered moose standing on his hind legs in the main character’s kitchen, holding a muffin politely between his hooves, asking for blackberry jam.
Should I write a blog? It would help Mark and other friends and family understand why I have written only half a novel two years after quitting my health policy job. I look down and notice I still haven’t taken my ADD medication.
