This is it, maybe. Well, I guess this is not it, but still…it quite possibly could be.

Do you use Pandora? I do, I’m proud to have every room – not a huge feat in my 700 square feet – in my place set up with a Sonos speaker. And I love it.

There’s not even walls between my kitchen and living room, but I have a speaker in each. Well, a sound bar in the living room for the TV, but I can also stream music through it. Likewise, when I’m watching a show, I can link the bathroom speaker to the TV so if Nature calls, I can answer without having to pause.

Unless it’s porn, of course. There’s two activities I’d like to keep at least an appearance of separation between.

I joke.

I don’t watch porn.

In my living room.

There’s no curtains.

Nonetheless, the TV and music sound situation is quite handled. It would appear that I’ve got my entertainment game all together.

So, Pandora…there’s this feature called Thumbprint. Have you heard of it? Used it?

I love it. It culls music from your playlists and just lavishes your favorite music upon you. I’ve noticed that sometimes Thumbprint will get stuck on a certain artist or decade or what-have-you…but, again – favorite music, so who cares?

Then this happened today while I was folding laundry.

Yeah.

Phil fucking Collins.

Basically, I made the same face.

And I’m just wandering from utility room to kitchen with clothes to be folded and then to my bedroom and dresser to put stuff away without really realizing what’s happening until that needle skip moment occurs.

I realize it’s not an acceptable Phil fucking Collins song, like In The Air Tonight.

It’s Land Of Confusion.

That’s just not ok.

I actually kind of enable a slight prophetic moment, as I think back to the last couple of years in America. Maybe Phil saw it all coming vaguely down the pike.

Doubtful.

Semi-comforting to think that someone at least saw this shift in sensibilities coming. Actually, then again…no. If someone knew this was coming and didn’t stop it.

The Doctor could have stopped it.

But not Phil…no.

I’m going back to the dryer for the rest of my laundry, thinking that I can just grab the rest of it. My utility room is kind of a shotgun situation.

Long and narrow. My bike is in there during winter months, too. Right by the spare tires in the left corner. I walk in and I’m loading my arms with the remaining tee shirts, socks, undies and whatnot and I’m thinking I got it.

I can do this.

Mistake.

Huge.

I pull out a tee shirt that has a stowaway pair of undies in it that drops to the floor. My arm is somehow full to my chin with the rest of the load – shut up, Diezel – and I’m still thinking, “Yeah, I can do this”.

I squat straight down – there’s no room to bend at the waist in this room – and grab the pants.

Admit it, you’re glad I stopped saying “undies”, right?

A single sock falls out of my arm as I tuck the pants under my chin.

Great.

I reach down and am fishing around with my hand, feeling for the sock because I can’t risk moving my head to look down. I don’t know why, but moving my eyes side to side helps me focus my intensity on the search. Maybe it’s that looking around keeps my attention divided just enough that I don’t stress out and overthink and overcorrect…I. Don’t. Know.

But my eyes swiveling in their sockets take in the mayhem of the room and the song clicks.

I bet you were wondering when I’d get back to that.

This is the world I live in?

There’s a paper bag of recyclables from when I ran out of the green BottleDrop bags – some of them were carried over by The Fox because he supports my redemption habit…probably I should square up with him by buying him a beer. But once I bought more green bags, I never transferred the accumulated cans into it. Now, as you can see in the front right, the bag is too full.

There’s a black trash bag of donations that Myrtle likes to pull at if I leave the utility room door open. Have I taken them? No. No, I have not.

And I wasn’t able to see it from where I was squatting, but in my mind’s eye, I was looking at the dustpan that has the remnants of the glass lamp shade that Myrtle broke one night about a month ago now.

So, it’s been there through about 3 trash bag changes…you’d think I could’ve taken those shards to the trash by now, right?

No.

Having successfully retrieved the errant sock, I start to stand up, expecting to hit my head either on the dryer door or the shelf. I usually do this once a month or so…but miraculously, not today.

I leave the utility room with the last of my laundry and look right at the naked lamp as I exit.

Yeah, I haven’t even taken the rest of the broken shade off the damn lamp. I think that’s partly because I want the base of the shade for when I replace it.

Probably, mostly as a potential punishment for Myrtle if she tries to get frisky with the lamp again.

This is the world I live in.

As I’m looking at the lamp, I’m reminded that I have yet to replace the battery in the thermostat directly above the lamp. I’m meeting Diezel for a couple beers at 3:45 and wanted to check the time on the thermostat to see how much time I have left.

An hour, I realize after mentally adjusting for Daylight Savings fuckery.

All of the clocks in my house are set to one of two times: right or wrong. Every six months, that switches. Some of the clocks adjust automatically, like my phone, microwave and oven clocks. Typically, the bathroom, living room and – inexplicably – thermostat clocks do not.

So, I change them mentally, depending on the time of year. Sometimes all the clocks are set to right, others, only half of them.

Unless…

Like in the case with the thermostat, I need to change a battery. Then that clock gets set to the correct time.

I gave old Phil a thumbs down, finished folding my laundry and mused that with as crazy as the outside world is these days, it’s even crazier that I’m not controlling all the minutia I can in my own four walled world.

I’ve got a half hour before I need to leave, I think I’ll spruce the place up a bit. Undo some of the non-Myrtle chaos. That’s a fair starting point. I’d self-diagnose Myrtle’s mayhem as a partial root to my housekeeping apathy. The way she sheds incessantly and kicks litter out of her box and shreds cardboard boxes to literal litter creates such a mess that I’ve kind of given up.

On everything.

I don’t know why…

But I can clean some dishes and switch out a battery at least. Hell, maybe I’ll even dust!

I’ll make this a world worth living in…