Freezing Time

I have done it again. I have misplaced something very important. It happens more than I care to admit. Just last week, I found my lost wallet after a three-hour search.

It was in the freezer.

How did I find it in the freezer? For me, it was the only logical place left to look. Earlier that day, I went to the store to pick up some grape-flavored Edy's Fruit Bars. I was standing in line at the registers when my phone rang. Mid-conversation the cashier was ready for money. I paid and stuffed the receipt into the crammed change compartment of my wallet. I wanted to put the wallet into my purse right then! But, I still needed to get out my car keys. With a purse under my arm, phone on my ear and wallet in my right hand, I took the grocery bag with my left.

I threw the wallet into the plastic bag so that I could hunt for my keys. When I got home, I stashed the popsicles, grocery bag and all, into the freezer. There remained my cash, getting cold.


Time management has always been somewhat of an issue for me. See, I didn't misplace my wallet because I'm lazy or that dysfunctional. I lose things because I’m in a hurry; because I’m trying to do too much.

My terrible habit began when I was very young. I remember signing up for extra-curricular activities that were slotted for the same days and times. I would race from a meeting to a practice. Too many times to count I would show up somewhere like church still wearing my softball cleats, or have to leave a friend's sleepover party early the next morning to make it to band rehearsal in time.

This left me wondering. How can we expect kids to be involved in everything and not loose something? We can’t. For some, they loose their childhood, their freedom. For others, they loose their education.

In a recent literature appreciation class, the professor was so excited about what he was teaching that he tried to cram too much into the semester. Reading two novels a week became unachievable for my fellow classmates. One day before class we began chatting about the workload. It turns out that no one was appreciating any of the literature we'd been assigned. To prepare for the required paper and quiz due each week, the entire class of English majors began turning to “Cliff's Notes.”

Fortunately for us, the professor was intelligent enough to alter the class when we approached him about the burdensome schedule. The result was overwhelming. Instead of getting to learn merely "what happened" in thirty books, we learned to love and embrace fifteen, letting the latter impact our lives so much that we felt compelled to teach others about them. For the first time in the semester we were appreciating instead of getting by.

The moral of the story? Maybe it’s time that school districts look to their curriculum and weed out the unnecessary. While they are at it, perhaps an over-haul of policy, specifically how much a student is allowed to participate in, is in order. Then after eliminating everything that bogs a student down, they will have time to stop...and smell the roses. It might just get them their lives back too.