No.18: Wander the House

I can wander my 50 foot square apartment for hours.   From whence this goalless, peripatetic urge arises is a mystery.  Ok, it’s procrastination, but never mind all that. If  ever anyone felt the urge to film this physical gubbins (obviously this is a ’someone’ so mentally unstable it’s unlikely they would be allowed to handle equipment heavy enough to bludgeon a person to death)  I imagine it could quite satisfactorily find a home on one of  those  BBC  social-psychological illness investigation docu-wotsits.  Although it wouldn’t, because it would be so boring people even people who like watching (and by ‘watching’ I mean slipping into a coma in front of) Heartbeat would storm the BBC in protest.

A flancer’s domestic wandering is never put to good use either.  Rather than - say, directing your body at the supermarket or laundrette (or cafe) before commencing on the most pointless moving about since Joe Calzaghe on Strictly , you simply tend to walk to a work surface, tidy something utterly irrelevant away off it (like a pencil), look in the fridge*, wander into the bathroom, wipe a surface down, wander back to the kitchen, look in the fridge again, put the kettle on (again. As it’s only just finished boiling from when you put it on five minutes ago), look out of the window, tidy your shoes…repeat until you’ve actually worn a small trench in the carpet. It’s like being hooked up to a suicidally depressed SatNav that got a D minus in GCSE geography.

This zombiefied shuffling is also always executed with a face like a educationally challenged teenager and takes place every day for a mighty good portion of the day.  I never do it anywhere else, mind.  When I go for coffee I don’t suddenly stand up, do a circuit of the room, go into the loo, tidy away the spare bog rolls, wander back, straighten a teaspoon and hang up my comrades coat.  Because they would have me committed for a start.  But this urge never arises outside my home. However, if I ever (miracles) get a piece of work to do, the wanderings get even worse and I am often to be found by my flatmate in my dressing gown putting the wine rack somewhere else at about six a.m.

Thank God I don’t live in a proper house. I’d  get nothing done.

TODAY’S FOOTNOTES

*One of life’s greatest pleasures, especially when visiting parents. Although it is in complete contradiction of the time space continuum that something inspiring will suddenly appear there magically since you last looked five minutes ago flancers still do it and the fridge hinges will wear out before they ever stop.