Have you ever been wondering what to do out of several choices? Like, boxing my 48 litres of wine (I don’t bottle: it’s too labour-intensive); doing a PowerPoint presentation for the following Sunday’s service; vacuuming the house; or getting the guest room ready for our next visitor arriving next Tuesday.

On returning home from a morning unlocking the church for a meeting I was not attending, picking up theatre tickets, going to the bank to make a deposit, then on to Costco to add another grandchild as a family member and finally the Bulk Barn to pick up unshelled peanuts and shelled sunflower seeds for the Blue Jays, squirrels and chipmunks, I had a nice lunch in my recliner followed by an even nicer nap.

So, there I was, right after my nap, faced with having to do something. Other than just staying in my recliner and trying to nod off again.

I decided that boxing my wine was a morning job, definitely not an afternoon one. For your edification, ‘boxing’ is not a term used by real vintners: it is one I coined as a result of deciding that de-labeling, washing and sterilizing 60 or so bottles, filling them, corking them, shrink-wrapping them, labelling them and carrying them down two flights of stairs to the wine room a few at a time was, as I said above, much too labour-intensive. Particularly as I would have to climb back up two flights again. I enjoy my wine – and that of other’s too – too much to waste time which could be used in drinking it. Besides the grape juice concentrate manufacturers provide me with a lovely strong plastic bag container, which holds up to 7 litres, and I re-insert the full bag back into the box they also, thoughtfully, provide. All I have to do is cut a hole in the side of the box so the spout can protrude to which I attach a tap. And there it is, ready to squirt wine into my glass; and yours, if you are here. How easy is that! All I needed was six bags and boxes, not sixty bottles.

The PowerPoint was the next option. However, I had just finished the presentation for this coming Sunday, so I didn’t really feel like jumping straight into another one for the following Sunday. There’s always time for that between now and the arrival of our next visitor.

Vacuuming the house was an option, which had true little appeal after just waking from a nap and having the other option of nodding off again. Besides, I find it takes too much energy to do the entire house in one go, so usually I split the exercise into two smaller efforts. By the time I had decided that I had time to vacuum one floor, it was too late, as I was already considering the fourth option….

….that of getting the guest room ready. Well, it is ready, it’s always ready for whomsoever needs to stay overnight, so all that is needed is to make the bed with clean sheets. And that can be done any time between now and Tuesday morning.

At about that time, I must have nodded off again.

On awakening, I realised that there was no time left to do any of the four options, so I sat down at the computer and wrote this.