With a few hours unscheduled, I sit at my desk and consult my calendar.

Due tomorrow: read three chapters of the textbook. Write a response paper. Critique classmates’ work for workshop.

Not too bad. Start with the response paper. That should go quickly. Pull out the laptop, but the battery’s nearly dead.

I find the charger, but not before I realize that my room is in desperate need of tidying, and the amount of laundry to be done borders crucial. Maybe I should do laundry.

I have to get this done by tonight, but clothes are important, too. I know! I’ll start one load of laundry and set a timer. While it runs, I’ll write the response paper and start the critiques. The room’s still a mess, but that can wait for tomorrow.

Go downstairs with the laundry. When I pass the kitchen, a Pavlovian response kicks in. I’m hungry.

Start the laundry. I ought to get back to work, but…food is necessary to live.

Make a peanut butter sandwich and slice an apple. Throw in some chips for good measure, if we have any. I can’t type and eat at the same time…

Surely, one episode won’t hurt; it’ll only take as long as I need to eat anyway.

Six episodes later, I’m hungry again.

How can it be dinner time already?

Well, I guess I’ll eat. The laundry must be done. Forget the laundry at least three more times before remembering long enough to actually switch it to the dryer.

Shovel something easy down my throat at light speed.

How did I let this happen?

Hurry through the response. Stare blankly at classmates’ work. Have to critique this, but all ability to form coherent thoughts has fled.

Painfully, slowly, crank out a response of the required length.

Every time I struggle for a thought, dust floats around the emptiness of my mind, punctuated by the swishing sound of the washing machine.

I wonder if the laundry’s dry yet. If it is, I have to put it away, and I still haven’t cleaned my room. I need to do that.

I need to do a million things.

Read the three chapters. Wander off mentally no fewer than a dozen times, wondering about philosophy, tomorrow, that irritating piece of something stuck between my teeth, the laundry.

Enumerate at least thrice the mantra of things yet to do.

Finish the reading. Look at the time. Go to bed.

It’s nearly morning already.

Just when I’m about to fall asleep—the laundry.