I frequently try to do too much.  I was a multi-tasker before it was even a thing.  Unfortunately, I am not always a good multi-tasker.  My wife has often reminded me—with little effect, I regret to say—that I should finish one job before starting another.  Good counsel!  I wish that I would take it more often!

This tendency to try to do too much (a.k.a., “multitasking”) manifests its ugly self in all kinds of ways.  Yesterday morning, I awakened at about 3:20, and couldn’t go back to sleep.  I got up and got to work.  “Well,” I said to myself, “at least I’ll get to my 7:00 a.m. twelve-step meeting on time.”

You guessed it: I was late.

When I was over on campus yesterday, preparing for classes, I decided to buy another coffee mug.  It wasn’t that I needed it.  I just wanted something with the Cincinnati Christian University logo on it.  I had a CCU coffee cup several years ago, but it met a tragic end.  Besides, $6.42 was not bad, I thought to myself!  I put it to good use right away, and enjoyed a cup of coffee in the commuter lounge.

This morning, I decided to take my lovely $6.42-CCU cup upstairs to my work area.  I decided to invite the dog upstairs too.  Then there was the gate to keep our curious little dog from getting herself into trouble.  I think there may have been one or two other items I took with me, but I can’t remember for sure.  I’ve blotted out some details, I’m sure.

You see where this is going, don’t you?

I tried to put the coffee cup on the lavatory top, but my hands were full.  The coffee mug stayed there for a second, and then there was a dismal “Splat!” on the floor, and my coffee cup was no more.  (Fortunately, there wasn’t anything in it!)

I will not verbalize some of the things I was tempted to say to myself.  I try to keep this website clean and family-friendly.

However, it didn’t take me long to laugh at myself.  In fact, I’m getting better and better at doing that.  I find myself endlessly entertaining.  I got the vacuum cleaner, the broom, and dust pan, and began to clean up the mess.  “That cup of coffee yesterday cost me $6.42,” I said ruefully to myself and my little dog.  She was wisely keeping her distance from her calamity-prone master.

Now, here is the unsurprising humor behind my first CCU coffee cup: I had it for several years, until it got broken.  . . .  Well, it didn’t really get broken.  I broke it.  I was carrying a whole bunch of books and other items to the car, along with the cup.  I don’t even need to tell you the rest, do I?

So, back to my second (and exceedingly brief) CCU coffee cup.

I was about to throw the whole thing in the trash, when I suddenly had a wonderful thought, two of them in fact.  One thought was about writing the blog post that you are reading right now.  The other thought was that I should keep the largest part of the cup as a reminder that multitasking is not my friend.  So, here I am working at my computer, noticing the two-thirds of a cup that sits on my desk.

And there let it set until they take me out of this house feet first!  Let it be a reminder that I am not God that I have my limits.  Let it remind me to slow down, to do one thing at a time.

Come to think of it, that coffee cup may have been a really good expenditure of my money after all!