Making a list and forgetting it

Are you one of those people who makes a written list every day, a list of things you need to do and when they need doing? Or, are you one of those people who makes mental list of things to do? Or, are you one of those people who just takes care of stuff and doesn’t worry about making lists?

I read somewhere that people who make lists are generally very efficient, organized and the kind of can-do people who get things done. The opposite of me, in other words. 

List makers are the kind of people you can count on to do stuff, as opposed to the kind of people you can count on to screw things up badly if it ever gets done at all.

Witness this weekend’s Georgia Outdoor Writers Association annual conference held in Adel. I did not have a list. So, I hijacked the business meeting from President Ron Brooks, locked myself in the hotel room bathroom and lost, found, lost and found again my toothbrush and toothpaste. I’m in the running to be the GOWA’s only repeat winner of the Magoo Award. Named for the cartoon character Mr. Magoo, the award is given to to the person at the GOWA awards who makes the biggest mess of things.

They are gonna rename it the Ben Baker-Magoo award. A more detailed column about this is coming

Anyway In an attempt to better organize myself and seat myself firmly in the camp of “very efficient and etc.” people, I decided I needed to make a list of things to do. The problem with putting together a list of things to do surfaces immediately. 

Gotta have something to put the list on. Cavemen in prehistoric times used to keep their lists of things to do on the cave walls. The people who examine cave wall paintings would have you believe these paintings are religious, symbolic and a whole bunch of other words that you need at least a 5th grade education to understand and pronounce.

They are, of course, wrong. Cave paintings are lists of things to do.

Consider intrepid cavemen Og and Thak. Og paints a picture of himself and Thak killing a Great Hairy to death. That is not a ritualistic behavior. That is Og making notes that he needs to go to the grocery store (the grocery store in this case being the Plains where the Great Hairys live) and bring home some steak for supper. As Og and Thak did not have a frost free fridge in the cave, so going to the grocery store on regularly was necessary. So, the To Do list was permanent.

I considered how this would apply to me. I immediately crossed off the idea spray painting my list of things do to on my barn wall. Items like Check Hog Trap, Back the Truck Down Highway 41 at Full Speed so the Backup Warning Siren Would Wake Up Everyone at 5:30 a.m., Write Editorial to make Elected Officials Mad and Find Dogs to Pet would take up too much room. While these are permanent items on my To Do list, like Og and Thak hunting Great Hairys, I don’t really need a list to remind me of that. It’s pretty much instinct at this point.

I remembered most lists are written on paper. Being a newspaper man, you’d think coming by paper is easy. Yes, I use about a half ton, literally, each week, but that already has all kinds of writing on it, including the Editorial to make Elected Officials Mad. So, I have to look for paper.

I find paper. Lots of it. Then I start looking for paper that is not covered with notes for newspaper articles. AHA!  I found a piece of paper which would work. It was an old Piggly Wiggly receipt. 

Now something to write with it. Og and Thak used charcoal. Since Mom bought me a propane grill, I got rid of all my charcoal. A pen. My kingdom for a pen! If I had a kingdom, that is.

I put down my paper and went looking for a pen. I found several, in various pieces and places. Eventually I managed to cobble together a Frankenstein pen. It even worked, as I discovered by scribbling on my hand.

I went looking for my paper. It had disappeared. By the time I found another piece of paper, I’d forgotten what I wanted to put on my list of things to do.