My step by step guide to being blissfully nonproductive
6am
What light through yonder window breaks? It is the sun’s salutation… and I smited the shrew. Yeah, comforter over my head, back to sleep. If you are going to achieve little or nothing in a day, best to avoid rising early. Enjoy more languid lounging.
9am
Crawled out of bed, took a long, slow, warm shower. Nothing productive here, taking an hour to do life’s minimums.
10am
Off to hand wash the car. almost sounds like a dangerous brush with performing something productive.
10:30am
But fear not. Pulled into Blue Wave Hand Wash. Handed the keys off, sat down with my wife in the relaxing waiting room where Cupcake Wars babbled on the big screen. We both pulled out our pocket super computers to fritter away the time.
Noon:
Car keys jingled behind my head. Turning I glanced at the young woman approaching. Sweat dripping from her minimally clothed body, she handed me my keys. It was a warm day, and she had spent the last hour and a half meticulously cleaning the interior, gently hand washing the exterior and lightly applying ceramic spray which would, as she said, “make that beautiful black paint pop even more in the sun.” I almost felt guilty. I could have been productive and performed these tasks myself. But only almost. Dedicated to achieving little to nothing today, I was still on task… and sweat free.
12:30pm
Strolling the Muskegon Farmer’s Market, inspecting the offerings in the long lines of stalls, we returned to our favorite one. The old man always cheerfully offering tastes… “Melt in your mouth sweetness of my strawberries”… “now this is how a perfect tomato tastes.” We purchased strawberries, tomatoes, mushrooms, green beans, cucumbers and zucchini. Yes, buying our produce for the next few days could be considered nominally productive, I argue that this was only a byproduct of our enjoyment of the market. Non-productivity intact.
1pm
Arriving at the northern edge of the Muskegon beaches, we took in the views of our beach shack restaurant – The Deck. Pleasantly warm, with a light breeze, our waitress, and most of the others wore the minimum of appropriate clothing. I wondered to myself if tips are positively correlated with rising temperatures. Anyway, such a happy place. Enjoying a strawberry lemonade and fantastic salad, views near and far. The best in beach life. Certainly blissfully nonproductive.
3pm
Short stops on beaches heading south. The water finally warming, humans swimming no longer an anomaly. And lest stress free relaxation on the beach be somehow productive, I fired up Angry Birds Augmented Reality right there on the beach. Now able to move around each scene blasting pigs, I realized I could still advance by leaning left and right to launch and win. Then, time to continue our trek.
Reaching Lake Harbor Park, we almost stopped. But the walk to the beach being over a mile through the dunes stopped us. The two mile round trip in the warmth could be too much like exercise… productive exercise.
So back to our favorite fisherman’s pier. The fish biting. Rods everywhere along the northern side. We sat and watched the world go by. Fishermen, boats, the crew working on the catwalk across the harbor. The high Lake Michigan water lapping at the pier even with no waves.
4:30pm
Back home, watching the Brewers (our adopted MLB team) win again. Then firing up the PS4 for a little MLB The Show. My player is battling on the Kansas City Royals AA farm team… The Northwest Arkansas Naturals. I raised his batting average from a paltry .245 to a healthy .330 in only a couple hours. Productive? Only virtually… and virtual doesn’t count.
7pm
After dinner we streamed some Netflix. And what could be more utterly less productive than watching a few episodes of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”? Right?
11:30pm
My work was done. Our work was done. A completely wasted day. And it felt so damn good. Would do it again today but I already spoiled it by cleaning the apartment this morning, And writing this blog. But the rest of the day? Blissfully nonproductive!