Why is wasting time so delicious? Because it is a premium activity that only the young can afford. Youth is all about the glories of waste and inefficiency. We waste time because we can. Because we don’t have kids and mortgages. Because we have so much to hope for, and daydream about. And someday soon those big, juicy Saturdays filled with nothing will be cut thin and mean.
There’s no right way to waste time, but here’s how Ditzy likes to do it.
1.Sitting on my bed in a towel
Something about this pose (the serene feeling of freshly bathed skin? The thrill of partial nakeness?) is so perfect that I would quite like a taxidermist to posthumously stuff my lifeless corpse into this position so that I can continue to do in death what I loved in life.
2. Walking around Tesco putting exotic foods in my basket before buying my £2.50 soup
The chicken and lentil never fails me. God bless the chicken and lentil. But it is important to spend half an hour lost in the snack aisle with a leg of lamb, ten pomegranates and a chocolate log under your arm.
3. Riding the Hammersmith & City/Circle Line
This isn’t ‘transport’ as we know it. As the Hammersmith & City lines meanders through the rooftops of west London, it feels more reminiscent of those ‘tree top’ rides at Legoland that are about the right speed for under-5s, heavily pregnant women and pre-rigor mortis corpses.
4. Stalking myself on facebook and try to imagine how I look to people who don’t know me
This is the digital equivalent of sitting on your hand until it goes numb and then covertly touching your boob to imagine what it would be like if a guy did it.
5. Sitting on the loo and re-reading the same magazine that has been there for 6 months
In terms of gossip mags, I have nestled myself into a soothing tear in the celebrity time-space continuum. Whenever I open the dog-eared pages of OK magazine (April 2017) that nice orange lady and her new footballer husband still greet me from the sitting room of their Cotswold home, whatsherface is still beaming in all her new Size-8 splendour and that ‘easy’ crossword at the back is still half filled in (damn you ‘7 down’ will I ever know your secret?)
6. Calling my mum in the morning to discuss how we slept and what we’re having for breakfast
“Like a LOG”
“COCONUT SHAVINGS??!”
“Just doing my teeth...you?”
Rinse and repeat until one of us dies.
7. Going to trendy shops to double check I still look ridiculous in everything
It is important to conduct regular experiments to double-check that the fashion world is still designing women’s wear for 10ft pre-pubescent eunuchs. Hours of entertainment and you can leave with your money still tucked away smugly in your back pocket.
8. Deleting the facebook app and then spending 3 minutes every 13 minutes logging in through my internet browser
This is a sure-fire way to protect my brain from the insidious grip of behavioural addiction that is currently enslaving all those other app-wielding plebs….
9. Displacement cleaning when there’s something important to do
The danger of fiddling whilst Rome burns adds a certain piquant excitement to methodologically re-arranging your bras.
10. Watching Buzzfeed Tasty Videos
You know. Every single one of you.
Written and Illustrated by Jess Bird