Maps

The other day (well, the other week) Wheat was helping me set up tables for a program. The tables have to be set up in a certain way because the room's actually a little small for the number of tables needed, and if you don't have things angled right the people sitting at the tables do nothing but bump chairs every time they try to move.

I've done the table thing enough times that I have a fairly strict method of going about it. I usually do it by myself (partly because it gives me mental prep time before the program, and partly because I'm paid to do it by myself), but when Wheat offered his help that day me 'n the sleep-deprived brain were happy to take him up on it.

Oh, and by the way... I did get some real sleep last night, so if I sound eerily lucid that may possibly be at least part of the explanation.

The problem with Wheat's help, though, was that he started from the opposite end of the room than I generally do and it completely threw me. I actually had to rearrange things in order to even be able to start setting up.

Sheesh.

At first I was thinking that I didn't need any further proof to add to the OLF file, but I'm not sure now that being obsessive was really the major difficulty. The thing is that I have a pretty clear mental map of how to set up the room in that particular configuration, and my brain was tired enough that it couldn't turn the map around and work from the different direction that Wheat accidentally tried to force it in to.

Poor Wheat. Makes you wonder sometimes why I don't get more things thrown at me.

We all work from mental maps in our daily lives, I think. Whether it's getting to work in the morning, making supper, or doing the laundry, we have plans. Steps we're meant to be taking. Sometimes they're flexible (there's no rule that says I should wash towels last, and if for some reason I had to wash them first it wouldn't really bother me), and other times not so much.

If you've ever been annoyed at having to find an alternate route someplace because of construction, have you considered how much of that annoyance is really due to having your map disrupted as opposed to the few minutes of extra travel time involved?

Ok, maybe it's just me then. I'm a creature of habit, I admit. It doesn't bother me. After all, there's comfort in regular routine, don't you think? As long as that routine doesn't take the place of, say, actually living life than there really shouldn't be any kind of problem with it.

Until someone innocently offers to help you set up tables, I guess.

I need to get back to the work routine now. You're welcome to write your own ending for the blather if the admittedly incomplete map I had time to doodle just now doesn't make sense to you.