What I really want for Christmas - For Brothers Only - Brief Article

Ebony, Dec, 2001 by Kevin Chappell

I began to shake, tremble. My mouth dried up, my eyes glassed over, and I broke out into a cold sweat. I pushed the buttons frantically, but no luck. I pounded it. I stared at it. I pleaded with it. I screamed.

Then finally, a response. A buzz, a beep, then silence. I had lost everything.

My little hand-held, computerized organizer gizmo--the one I received last Christmas that promised to bring order to my life, the one I had filled with every piece of information that had once cluttered my brain--had died on me.

"Now what?" I thought as I sat holding the shell of the machine I was once married to. My anger gave way to a sort of emptiness; my emptiness led to a deep sense of betrayal. I began to feel like a bond had been broken. You see, I had an agreement with my computerized organizer gizmo, an understanding, a vow. It had promised me, right there in its instructions, that if I opened up to it, it would accept me with no questions asked.

It had convinced me that I was worthy of a system better than the little scrap pieces of paper I had been using in a futile attempt to stay organized. It had convinced me that it was the answer to all of my problems, my dream come true.

So I took it at its word, and we became one. It knew I had faults, like scheduling meetings too close together, forgetting birthdays, transposing telephone numbers. But it stuck by me, even when I spilled hot coffee on it one day, and accidentally showered it with jelly filling that squirted out the back end of my doughnut.

Our love grew. It was small enough to fit into my pocket, but had a memory, large enough to hold my entire being. Anything I wanted to know could be recalled at the push of a button. In no time, I had fallen completely for it, carrying it in my shirt pocket wherever I went. Right there, next to my heart.

Looking back on it, maybe I rushed things. Maybe it wasn't ready to be committed to one person. Maybe it had fallen out of love, and didn't have the circuitry to tell me. Maybe it wanted to sort the field, organize its wild oats.

Maybe it didn't die. Maybe I smothered it to death. Maybe I overloaded it with too many of my insignificant dilemmas. Maybe it blew a bit because it felt unappreciated; crashed because it felt used.

Maybe I'll never know. But as I sat close to tears and began to realize the impact of what had just happened, none of that really mattered to me. My telephone numbers were gone. My schedule was gone. But worst of all, this deadbeat of a computer took my dozen or so "to do" lists with it. Without those lists, I was lost.

There was my personal list, you know with stuff like: Make an appointment to get my hair cut, get the oil changed in my car, buy a six-pack for the game tonight.

I also had a job list, with a list of things I had to do at work, things I needed to do, things I should do but probably wouldn't, and things I was going to try to trick a coworker into doing for me.

Then I had my kissing-up list, complete with the names of the people I needed to call to compliment, praise and congratulate for things I really couldn't care less about but had to act like I did just in case I might need them for something one day.

And there was my keeping-the-peace list--the one with all the things I had to do for anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Boss' Day, Secretary's Day and this new one, Sweetest Day. This list kept me out of hot water. I also had a personal-finance list. This one told me how much less my paycheck was from the bills that needed to be paid.

I can't forget my home-improvement list, my self-improvement list, and my ways-to-improve-on-the-improvements-that-I-have-made list. That's right, my lists were so out of control they even had lists of their own.

My wife had tried to convince me that organizing my life began with organizing my mind. By getting rid of the things that clutter it, and compartmentalizing and prioritizing the things that really mattered, I would be much more productive.

Women are good at organizing their lives, much better than men. Women can handle multiple tasks that would overwhelm the average guy, and they can remember things that we have long forgotten, like what happened on your date five years ago. So my wife tried to help me through some mental-visualization, word-association and memory-building exercises. But nothing worked. Before long, she had concluded that I was too far gone.

Maybe I am. But at least I can take solace in the fact that many people are as unorganized and dependent on to-do lists as I am. In fact, Santa himself makes one. And it's obvious that he's no better at it than I am. Heck, he even has to check his list twice.

So Santa, if you're reading this, keep your ties, your sweaters, and your cologne. Keep your computerized gizmos that promise to organize the chaos in my life. Instead, put one thing on your list for me this Christmas--a life with real order, the kind that no to-do list can achieve. Because as I discovered the hard way, a life driven by never-ending disorganization is only a buzz and a beep away from heartache.