ENGINEERING A SOLUTION

I’m not great at planning ahead. My brain doesn’t seem to be able to calculate the best way to get things done, way in advance, or realise how best to use time to make sure I’m ready for things.

And the more things there are in your life, the harder that gets. That’s why I’m currently twiddling my thumbs at home, waiting for the washing machine to finish so I can hang up my clothes ready to dry so I can go on holiday tomorrow. I can’t go to work until I do that (these things don’t hang themselves), which will make me late home tonight. Inevitably I’ll either eat or wash up tonight but perhaps not both, meaning tomorrow morning will be a huge rush and... well you can see perhaps why I need a holiday. I’ve been living against the margins.

And there’s only one of me! One linear path stretches into the future, flexible and fairly free, with only a small number of connected lives affected only ever in minor ways. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a family! All the paths intertwine and curve, and overlap like some turbulent, dimensional logic puzzle you spend all your waking moments trying to solve with a wall calendar and a telephone.

I talk about being an ‘engineer’... Parents are perhaps the best engineers and project managers on the planet! What’s my excuse?

I suppose, in theory, more people give you more options as well as more headaches. Perhaps that helps? Two people can drive separate children to a school play and a swimming lesson if you have two cars. A third could babysit the other one, and maybe there are logistics from other people who can help out there - usually grandparents or neighbours who heroically solve those kind of problems every day.

But my first problem is that I just don’t think of things in time, or spot a problem, or talk life-planning things through with anyone before I make a plan about how to solve things.

And my second problem is that I’m now really late for work, waiting for the washing machine to finish. Perhaps I can say I was thinking about how to engineer a solution to a project-planning problem? That’ll wash, right?