Just Chillin'

The best thing about being back at work is that when you’re not at work, you can totally not be. That is, instead of having to feel like the empty hours need to be filled up, you can leave them empty, and just do stuff like sit around, drinking coffee and watching college football, even if you don’t care about the outcome of the game at all. Because you are a contributing member of society for some specified part of the week already, you can justify being a slug he rest of the time. Advertisers and professional sports teams count on this and far be it for me to reject their considerable charms.

I do wonder whether really good characters—Mother Teresa, Zel Kravinsky, the Geico Gecko—ever check out as mightily as this. I’m inclined to believe those I really admire don’t ever really slack off; it’s hard for me to picture the Blessed Teresa with a pennant in one hand, a beer in the other cheering as USC drives the length of the football field for another score. (It’s hard for me to picture myself doing that, either; I’m much more likely to be asleep on the couch while the game plays silently.)

All this does raise a question that continues to bedevil me: how good should we be? Is it enough to be a moderately good citizen, father, and employee or is one required to do more, say at least doing those dishes that are currently sitting unwashed on the kitchen counter?

My own view is that, in general, one is not required to go above and beyond the call of duty; supererogatory acts are just that. So, while I should probably wash that coffee cup and salad plate I dirtied up at breakfast, I don’t really have to do Mimi’s lunch plate.

And now I won’t have to do her dinner dishes either; she and Ani just came in and asked for Ezell’s take-out Chicken.