My work ethic could use some work

I’m lazy. Do you know how lazy I am? I spent about five minutes to think of a catchy introduction to grab the reader, thought of nothing, and just said “Screw a catchy introduction to grab the reader; I’ll just open with ‘I’m lazy.’”

This is nothing new. I’ve had this problem my whole life. Nowadays I rarely find the energy to get around to reading a book. Back in elementary school, I didn’t learn to read until I was in third grade. Before then, I always just insisted I’d get around to it. In fifth grade, I decided that sharpening pencils expended too much of my energy. If the classroom had one of those automatic pencil sharpeners, it might have been a different story (though it was still quite a walk from my desk to the cabinet with the pencil sharpener). Instead, I had to walk all the way over there and then fumble with the old hand crank model. The thing had a defective suction thing on the bottom as well which means I had to hold it in place with one hand while cranking with another and somehow holding the pencil in there however I could.

It was a chore to say the least. So one day, I simply got tired of it. I stopped getting up to sharpen pencils and made due with what I had at my desk. Namely, my mouth. I just chomped away at the ends of pencils until I exposed enough lead to ensure that I never had to leave my comfortable chair. Besides almost choking on a few shavings, there didn’t seem to be a problem for a while.

Gradually, I started to notice that I seemed to be changing. I felt like I was completely drained and I could barely keep awake during the day. My wrists and ankles swelled up like balloons and I found my joints were completely locked into place. My lungs tightened until they felt like they were each about the size of baseballs and I started coughing up gobs of black goo.

Having recently paid little attention to the health videos we had been watching while the girls were out of the room, I assumed that I was beginning to go through puberty. I anxiously awaited my growth spurt and wondered what good noticing girls would do me with my blue lips, rapidly receding hair line, and violent uncontrollable tremors. It wasn’t until I passed out on the swing set, tangled my legs in the chain, and dragged my head along the ground, swallowing about a quart of sand in the process, that a doctor diagnosed me with lead poisoning.

I think all of this traces back to my deeply-held belief that life is precious and every second we have on this earth should be lived to the fullest because we don’t know what awaits us when we die. I could be hit by a comet tomorrow and simply drop into nonexistence. I need to make the best of every moment I have. So what if I only do my homework on my way to and from classes or if I drape lunchmeat over a roll rather than struggle with a knife. I have more important things to worry about.

Laziness plagued me throughout high school as well. In tenth grade, one of my shoes began to fall apart. First, several of the little bits of leather holding the laces on the shoes fell off. Soon, my laces were stretched across my shoes in all sorts of random diagonals that did little to keep them on my feet. Soon, one of the air bubbles that was supposed to help me jump higher--essential for anyone as tall as your average bicycle--popped. This caused my right shoe to deflate on one side so I had to amble down the hall on a strange slant. Rather than decide it was time to run to the store for a new pair of shoes, I insisted they were fine. Meanwhile, the sole on my left shoe began to peel off. The deterioration continued until finally I was compelled to get a new pair after they got caught when I was trying to climb a fence and I had a chain link imprint on my face for about a week and a half.

I had another amusing anecdote involving a dog, a burning building, and a key lime pie, but…eh.