Master of Indecision

I think I became an indecisive person in 1962 when I was four years old.  Planter's Peanuts was headquartered right here and one of my dad's friends from the church choir worked for them.  It was he who gave my dad a collection of little Mr. Peanut figurines, each cast in a very rich hue of the primary and secondary colors as well as white, black, and brown.  (Back then, I think we kids had more common sense than kids seem to be born with these days because I was allowed to play with the little guys with nobody fearing that I was going to try to ingest one of them or shove one up my nose.)  Each one and a half inch tall Mr. Peanut was posed with his hand on his hip so that his tiny plastic hand was fused to his torso.  The triangular space inside the crook of each one's elbow allowed me to pass a string from one to the next and then tie off the loop of string to keep them all together.  There was something that positively thrilled me about seeing all of the colors together and I knew that if I had to choose only one to keep, trying to make the decision of which one to hold onto would have given me the four-year old version of a nervous breakdown.  That early realization that I would not have been able to cope with that hypothetical choice, I believe, helped to make me into a person who goes into a tizzy when trying to decide on which leftover to have for lunch.

Major portions of my summer days demand that I make decisions for the sake of not dying from sheer boredom.  Thus, when I found myself awake this morning at 4:30 and unable to fall back to sleep, I just knew it was going to be a banner day because I would have even more time on my hands with which to decide what I wanted to do.  I decided initially that I would begin working on a modification for the scooter that I had been planning, but after about 15 minutes, even in the shade, the heat of the day was becoming nearly unbearable.  It was then that I put away the tools, hopped on the scooter, and drove it from the yard up to the street only to face that huge decision I have to make every time I want to ride but have nowhere in particular to go:  Where shall I go?

I decided that since my main objective was simply to cool off I would head up to one of the larger strip malls, make my usual morning phone call from one of the benches outside a department store, see if I could find something worth taking a picture of, and just roll around the parking lot to get the air moving through my sleeves and under my helmet.  As is often the case when I am looking for something photo worthy, I find little.  The nearly empty parking lot itself, though, almost begged to be photographed in its quiet calm before the shopping storm.

In realizing that the shopping center was populated at that hour only by employees arriving early to the various stores at which they are employed, it dawned on me that I could get a shot of myself that I had wanted to get for some time but had not yet gotten for fear of getting strange looks from bunches of people.  Outside Target are what appear to be two, red concrete balls.  I needed a picture of myself perched on one of them, though I know not why.  I took advantage of the opportunity.  Okay, perhaps my bucket list is an odd one, but score me another check mark for this shot!  The constipated look was merely a function of the morning sun shining brightly in my eyes.

Upon leaving the parking lot I noticed the yellow glow on the dashboard telling me that the scooter was rather low on gas.  In my four years of scootering I had seen the desperately-needs-fuel light maybe twice before because I am generally good at keeping an eye on the display and filling up when I get to under the halfway point on the fuel gauge.  Although there were a number of gas stations between where I was and my usual filling station I rode the extra distance to my regular place where I have yet to get any bad gas.  I had made the mistake twice before of getting gas elsewhere only to have to drain the tank and refill it with the "good stuff."

Back to being indecisive...  Yesterday I found myself in the Lehigh Valley at one of the major photography shops on the East Coast and perhaps in the entire country if you don't count all the dot-coms.  After drooling for a while over various cameras, none of which I thought I would be getting when I left the house, I decided on a new Fuji.  Here's my old buddy W. T. Duck, showing it off.  I am not yet sure where this camera will fit into the digital arsenal.  It's too good just to carry in the omnipresent pouch on my hip for daily use, but not quite as serious as the DSLR.  Perhaps it will become my camera of choice when I am traveling, for those quick shots that I want to be good when I'm too lazy to get the big Olympus out of the bag and ready to fire.

Somewhere in between starting and finishing this post I had two Yocco's* hot dogs for breakfast, set up a grease and oil change for one of the cars, made an important phone call, and picked up a printer that was gifted to me.  Now, comes the serious indecision.  There is nothing compelling to do for the rest of the day and it would be too hot to do it even if there were.  Maybe something on Netflix will transition nicely into a late morning nap.  Perhaps another scooter ride to God-knows-where will be in order.  We shall see...

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*If you went to the Yocco's link, I assure you that their little "mascot" is not a turd king on his throne. It's supposed to be a hot dog. At least, I think so.