Occasionally, I look at Dan when he appears to be deep in thought,  and I ask, “What are you thinking?”

As often as not, he says something like, “I don’t know. Nothing.”

But that can’t be true.

We’re never not thinking. (Forgive my double negative.)

I know this because I’ve tried not to think.

I can’t do it.

The best I can do is think: I don’t want to think this thing I’m thinking.

On a recent dark and rainy Saturday, my cooped-up-in-the-house-too-long mind wandered to these places.

I thought:

 

 

What is that one tiny germ or group of germs (0.1% of all known germs) that no household cleanser in the world can kill?

 

 

 

Why do they make a sleeping bag bag ALMOST big enough to get the  re-rolled sleeping bag back inside it?

 

 

 

 

 

Why don’t they make trash bags out of the same strong plastic they use to hold Happy Meal toys? You know, that plastic that requires gardening shears to open?

 

 

 

 

 

Why do I always have more lids than storage bowls?

 

 

 

Why do I fret about the grandkids mixing Play-Doh colors? There’s no way for a kid to make a reasonable facsimile of a salad or a representation of worms climbing up a Neptunian mountain without using multiple colors of this cheap artistic medium.

 

 

Why do I painstakingly put Legos, Lincoln Logs, Peppa Pig figures, toy jewelry, and My Little Ponies into assigned and labeled totes when, after the grandkids have been here for five minutes, each tote contains what look like the leavings of a four-day yard sale?

 

 

 

If I would spend less time trying to get sleeping bags back inside their bags, putting trash into new bags because the original bags burst, matching lids to bowls, putting Play-Doh into the right cans, and sorting puzzle pieces from Lincoln Logs and toy jewelry, I might discover and destroy that tiny germ that thwarts every effort by household cleansers to kill it.

The world would then be a better place and I would be a happier person.

Or, maybe I should give that trying to think about nothing business another try.