You can read this now, or read it later

"Seems like there was something I was supposed to do," I told my friend the other day.

"Oh," he replied. "So you're a procrastinator."

"No, no," I told him. "I'm a Methodist. But sometimes I just put off doing things until the last minute."

OK, I admit it. I am a procrastinator and on top of that, I'm impatient. You wouldn't think those two things would go together, would ya? You get yourself an impatient procrastinator and you've got yourself an Emmy Award-winning Dr. Phil show.

I'm not necessarily on time ALL the time, but I'm usually pretty close. I like to be, as they say, "fashionably late."

Also, like Larry the Cable Guy, I'll always "git-r-done" but it might not be as quickly as some other folks.

See, I'm easily distracted and I'd almost always rather be doing something else, anything else, than something that's scheduled. I'm not a schedule kind of guy. I'll be there when you see me coming. If I ain't there when I'm supposed to be, y'all go ahead and start without me and I'll try and catch up.

Right now, it's 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm writing this column because I have put it off until the last minute. I was going to write it last night, but the old Newhart show came on TV and it was the one where Stephanie's REALLY OLD husband came back to town and like I said, I'm easily distracted. Besides, I love that show. They don't make 'em like that anymore (notice the obligatory use of the cliché here and note also that I'm rambling a bit, which just further proves my point about being easily distracted).

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah. I was going to write this column last night but Newhart was on and then after that, the Honeymooners came on and I defy any mortal human being to try to work when Jackie Gleason is doing something on television. It just can't be done.

I notice over on the end table by the sofa there's a storm door handle that my wife bought two — or was it three? — weeks ago.

"We need to put this on the door in the mud room," she told me, waving the cardboard sheet with the shrink-wrapped metal handle inside of it in front of my face so as to make sure she got my attention.

(Little sidebar here: When we did a remodeling job on our house a couple of years ago and she said she wanted to add a mud room, I wasn't exactly sure what she was talking about because, being the dumb redneck that I am, I didn't know what a mud room was. That scene in the movie "Stripes" where Bill Murray, John Candy and the boys wander off the military base and wind up at this mud wrestling event kept running through my head. Turns out, thought, that a mud room has nothing to do with mud wrestling. It's just a place where you take off your (presumably) muddy shoes before you enter the house. Pretty boring concept, huh?)

Next thing you know, they'll come up with a "Hose You Down Room," where, so the home owner can make sure visitors are thoroughly clean, when you walk through the door, water nozzles pop out of the walls and hose you down. Then a conveyor belt moves you to the next stage where a series of air blowers dries you off — George Jetson style — before you come on into the house.

Anyway, she said we needed to replace the handle on the storm door in the mud room. The reason we need to replace it is because our dog - Oreo the Hyper Border Collie - chewed it up. He did that because he thinks he's human. He thinks he can open the door. He's as impatient as I am and when he wants in the house - HE WANTS IN THE HOUSE and he means RIGHT NOW mister, and if you don't let him in, he will try to figure out a way to get in by himself. The other day, I saw him using a screwdriver I had left out on the porch to try and pick the lock. (OK, maybe I made that part up, but try to picture a border collie on his hind legs with a screwdriver in his mouth trying to pick a door lock - c'mon, that's pretty funny, right?)

I love that dog, because he's got the same type of attention span I have. He doesn't know what he wants to do. Man, he's all over the place like one of my errant golf shots, like one of those Western comedies where someone fires a gun and the bullet keeps ricocheting off stuff before it finally knocks the cowboy's hat off. You can give that dog a Milk Bone and he will come in the den and lay down with it and he doesn't know whether to eat it right away or whether he should be doing something else (I'm telling ya, he's just like me). So he lies there with the doggie bone on the floor between his front paws and he's looking around like there's something else he should be taking care of when the cat comes wandering through and, well, that just short-circuits his brain because now he's really confused and he goes into hyper-drive overload. And he's saying to himself, "Let's see, do I eat the bone, or chase the cat, or should I go check out that noise in the bedroom? Did they leave the TV on in there, or is that a burglar? Should I bark and go loping in there or should I chase the cat? Oh yeah, and what should I do about this bone? And, doggone it, there's that cat again. Oh man, and something smells good in the kitchen. Smells like bacon and eggs. Should I go check that out or chase my tail? Man, oh man, there's that cat again. Holy buckets! I can't take this! Where's my Ritalin?"

I love that dog. Gotta go now. Guess I'd better put that storm door handle on.

Y'all come and see us.

And don't forget to take your shoes off in the mud room.

Klonie Jordan (editor@gaffneyledger.com) is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger.