zero effort accomplishment

today i rushed home to meet the furnace guy. i thought i had better shovel a path for him and check the kitty litter just in case the cat decided to stink up the basement rather than my office. i imagine the furnace business is filled with catshit afternoons, and i don't want to add to that.

neither snow nor poop had fallen since i had left in the morning, so my job was pretty easy (just clean up after the plow). i sat and waited and greeted and paid. there was only one difficulty associated with the entire task: convincing the furnace guy that december 2007 was only a year ago and not two. "you should have it cleaned after a year, not two years." the discussion ended in a draw--both of us convinced the other couldn't subtract.

at the end of it all, i could check "furnace" off my list with nearly no effort on my part. i love accomplishing things without doing anything. i get excited every friday when a truck comes and helps me check "garbage" off my list. i need more of this. what ever happened to the milk man?

an old boss of mine told me that when young i would get paid for what i did, and when i got older, i could get paid for what i knew. i guess that when i was young i could sense accomplishment for what i did; now i feel it when i pay someone else to do it. god bless america.