A PHYSICS PROBLEM

Time for another physics problem. Here it comes...

Right. I left work, on time. Sure, it was dark, but it's winter; it's always dark these days. As is my custom for a Monday evening, I went to Sainsbury's and did food-shopping. As is also my custom, I shook my head at a few things, avoided eye-contact with a few other things, and stood in front of yet more things trying to reason myself out of buying them. Then I took my trolley to the till, smiled at a lady, and went home.

Still with me? We'll get to the physics in a minute.

When I got home, I stumbled over the shoes, and last week's Midweek Chronicle, and set about unpacking my shopping while I watched YouTube clips of CNN and MSNBC discussing America as though they were somehow weirdly, not part of it. I pulled out a chopping board, unsheathed a knife and started chopping onions and peppers. I got bored with listening to speculation about President Business, so I put Kris Vallotton on and listened to him talk about being accountable for your gifting.

The chopped vegetables sizzled as they fell into the pan. I flicked on the kettle and dumped a handful of linguine into another pan, ready for the boil. A can of tomatoes went in the first pan, and the colourful mix began to simmer. A few moments later, the pasta was cooked, so I started draining it over the sink, using the saucepan lid.

The lid fell in the sink, taking most of the linguine with it.

I stood there open-mouthed for a while, sighed miserably and then got more pasta out of the packet.

We're not there yet; that's not the physics problem. In fact, I almost wish that the laws of physics had given me that 'problem', by stopping working over the sink*, allowing the pasta to miraculously stick to the pan and defy gravity altogether. That kind of physics problem, I would have been alright with, even if Newton himself had seen it!

Though, there definitely wouldn't have been room for Sir Isaac and his ego, in my kitchen. Besides, he'd have been distracted by the iPad blaring out the thoughts of an American preacher from the wall.

A few minutes later, I successfully drained the new pasta and dumped it sloppily into a bowl. Then I spooned out the sauce and dolloped it onto the pasta. Then I sprinkled grated cheese on the top and carried the mountainous bowl into the other room, ready to eat it - the pasta, not the bowl.

And eat it, I just did. It was actually really nice! It was a kind of beautiful, flavoursome, cheesy, linguine bolognese.

The physics problem then, is not cooking or eating, or superstring pasta. It's time. How in the world is it now 10 of the actual pm? I haven't even done my daily stint of washing up yet! Where in this ridiculous universe has the time gone? Where?

And where, tell me, was this terrible time-thief this morning, when I was in a meeting with a PowerPoint presentation containing a mind-bending word-density of about 200 words per slide?

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever get to solve such physics problems. Pasta will continue to fall out of the pan and into the sink when you want to eat it, and will proceed to stick to the pan like stringy limpets... the very second you're ready to wash the pan up. Time will keep accelerating when you're not noticing, and slow right down to a dead stop whenever you're trying to stay awake in a status meeting, and at some point on such evenings of pondering like this, I will once again make a note to remind myself to buy a colander next time I'm in Sainsbury's in the slim hope that next Monday... I'll actually remember.

*Very importantly, specifically over my sink and nowhere else in the Universe. I can't stress that enough.