My Department of Goshdarned Efficiency

Or, How I Saved A Bundle Without Sacrificing Anything At All Except For Everything

I’ve been running into myself a lot lately. It’s the sort of thing that ought to be avoided unless you’re not concerned about losing your mind, but I just can’t seem to shake myself. I’ll start steaming some broccoli, and I pop up and remind myself that the farmers who grew it are suffering from the federal government’s pointless grant freeze. I try to clear my head by going for a walk, but there I am by the house with the giant chicken coop, waving myself away with warnings about bird flu mutations while the CDC is in a state of utter disarray. I stop by the library, and as I turn the corner to the shelves of American history books, I almost trip on myself. There I am, sitting on the floor, weeping, weeping, weeping.

After weeks of this, I figured the solution was to get more efficient. If only I were more efficient, I wouldn’t give a damn about anybody else’s problems and maybe I’d be too arrogant to be concerned about my own, too.

I started in the kitchen—no more thinking about starving farmers while I prep their product. I was going to trash all the broccoli, but when I put my hand on the refrigerator door I had a better idea. You know what I did? I looked that refrigerator right in the eye and I demanded it provide me with a list of five things it had accomplished last week. It said the only thing it did was keep my family’s food from spoiling. Ach! The inefficiency! I got out my chainsaw and in no time flat that refrigerator wasn’t an issue anymore, except for all the pieces of plastic and steel and wire and chemicals all over the kitchen floor. But the savings! Between the electricity it wouldn’t be using and the food it wouldn’t be storing, I must’ve made a trillion.

Next, I went to into my office. There were two computers and a typewriter. The first computer is for my job and the second is for my personal use, and the typewriter is for escaping from the computers every few hours. Inefficiency! Why, I didn’t even know what ninety-five to ninety-nine percent of the parts inside those computers did. Out came the chainsaw. Little bits of microchips all over the place. And with no need to escape from the computers anymore, it was chainsaw time for Mr. Underwood. No more ink ribbon purchases in my future. Billions in savings!

Then I saw my books on the bookshelves and my records by the stereo, and I realized at least half the reason I’d been running into myself is because my head is so full of ideas and my heart is so full of life that I couldn’t help but be in all those places at once. No more. Charles Mingus and Glenn Miller and Ella Fitzgerald? Chainsaw! Chainsaw! Chainsaw! Beethoven? ♬ Vrrm-vrrm-vrrmVRRM♬ Bill Bryson and David Halberstam, Zadie Smith and Isaac Bashevis Singer, Annie Proulx and Walter Mosley? TIM-BER!

I went right down to the living room after that, and I pulled out the streaming device and all the Blu-rays and DVDs. Bowfinger? Chainsaw! Buck Privates? Chainsaw! La Dolce Vita? Chainsaw! Modern Times? History! Chan is Missing? You bet he is! Trillions of dollars saved.

With no more wasteful objects sitting around the house to tempt me into thinking or feeling anything and no more tools for me to write things that might provoke thoughts or feelings in others, plus with no place to keep food cold, I figure I’ll be pretty darn efficient. Really, now I can just lie down and not expend one iota of energy on anything! I can just wait here to be picked apart by scavengers! Until I don’t even exist! Hot dog, that’s going to save some serious money.

Efficiency, at last!