A Day In the Life

(post by Jason) Many of you will remember a series of coffee table books entitled “A Day in the Life of [Insert Country here]” . The premise of the books was that a number….quite a number…..of photographers set out to capture one day in the life of communities all over the country. The best of their pictures made it to the book and each book sold many, many copies. Those books were full of competent, happy people doing whatever it is that they were doing at various points in their day.

I think it’s safe to say I will never appear in any book like that, operating as I do in the mode of absent minded professor most of the time. Often this shows up when I can’t find either my keys or my wallet after trying to multi-task for a period of time. Melissa is so used to me getting an alarmed look on my face while vigorously patting all my pockets like I would if a small fire had spontaneously erupted that it doesn’t even register with her any more. She just asks “Wallet or keys ?”

Others seem to find my alarmed pat downs quite alarming, then quite amusing. Melissa used to think I was kidding but I can only competently focus on and accomplish one task at a time (Melissa here to say that Melissa definitely does not think you are kidding anymore.) . If I have more than one task put on my plate something is going to get misplaced. Seriously misplaced. The other morning I managed to misplace the tractor keys while trying to do two things at once and as a result I spent nearly two hours tearing apart our vehicle and the farm office looking for them only to discover them in my left front pocket. It sure manages keeps me busy! (Melissa again – another thing I’ve learned is that the Jason’s pat downs are not very effective. I insist he empty his pockets completely before we move on to searching elsewhere.)

If there’s a positive to this mental “handicap” it’s that I’m extremely focused on the one task that that I happen to be working on competently at the time. Cannon fire won’t distract me from it, in fact there is a good chance I won’t hear the cannon firing at all. Many times Melissa has stood less than fifty feet from where I’m working yelling at the top of her lungs to get my attention and having no success whatsoever. (Melissa again. I’ve even resorted to throwing things that at him. If nothing else it elicits an … interesting … response.)

I daresay this wouldn’t play well for a photographer operating on a tight time schedule or for me either. Attempting to focus on what he was doing as well as what I was supposed to be doing would lead to some colossal blunders involving either my wallet or my keys and I would have to spend the next several hours grunting around on my knees looking for them. I can see the photo captions now.

10:45 am – Jason Webb, Lynnville, TN searches under his tractor for his keys and wallet.

11:47 am – Jason Webb, Lynville, TN pats himself down as if he were on fire searching for his keys and wallet. Sorry, I had to contribute my own photo caption.

1:52 pm – Jason Webb, Lynville, TN searches under his tractor for the thirteenth time today looking for his keys and wallet.

3:19 pm – Jason Webb, Lynnville, TN emerges victorious from the washroom where he went to wash off some of the grease he collected on his hands while under the tractor looking for his keys and wallet. Unbelievably he found BOTH keys and wallet on the edge of the sink. He has absolutely no idea how they got there.

That said, a day in my life would often be ridiculously easy to photograph. You’ll find me under the tractor. If it’s not broken you now have a head’s up as to what I’m doing down there – searching for my keys and/or wallet. Just don’t tell the man with the camera.

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Alex and Darby