The Art of Wasting a Perfectly Good Saturday

The amount of planning required to accomplish absolutely nothing on your one-day-off-a-week cannot be overstated.  It is essential to begin preparation as early as possible.  

First and foremost, spend hours online searching Facebook walls, online newspapers and events websites for local venues’ upcoming Friday night entertainment schedule.  This time may be rendered useless when you find out at the last minute that all of them had the schedule incorrect, thus requiring even more time for re-planning.  This is a good opportunity to practice your time-wasting skills for Saturday.

Text, email and Facebook all your friends as soon as possible to ensure proper attendance for Friday night’s entertainment.  Most of these friends will need to bow out at the last minute due to a sickness that has apparently infected the entire town, making all the time you spent putting together the Friday Night Roster unnecessary…but once again, this is excellent practice for what you’ll be doing on Saturday.  

When Friday night finally rolls around, be sure to set aside plenty of time for choosing your wardrobe.  You may wonder why you wait until the last minute to do this, but rest assured this is a well-thought-out-plan.  Clothing options will be limited to whatever happens to be clean…you will spend an inordinate amount of time trying on outfits and wishing like hell you had done laundry earlier in the week.  Thus beginning your “To Do” list for Saturday that you’ll artfully avoid and un-accomplish.

Ensure that whatever your Friday evening plans entail will include drinking a lot of caffeine so you can stay out as long as possible.  You’ll know it’s time to go home when the music stops, the lights of the venue brighten to what can only be considered almost-daylight, and some woman walks around telling everyone “It’s closing time folks, bar clock says 2am.”  

Now please pay attention because this part’s tricky; some of you may actually want to go home and immediately fall into bed.  Experienced Saturday-Wasters know it is essential to fight this urge.  Standing outside the establishment that has just kicked you out while waiting for a cab that will never come is a great way to prolong the evening.   As is walking home in pouring rain.  

When you do make it home, you’ll want to start replaying the night and laughing at all the funny parts all over again as if they were happening for the first time.  This is even more fun if you have someone to talk to, but dogs or cats will do in a pinch.  

If you’re lucky, you won’t get much sleep until the wee hours of the morning.  When you awake to find it’s 9:30, promptly turn over and attempt to go back to sleep.  Repeat at 10:30 and again at 11:00.  If you feel compelled to get up and shower before 11am, try to keep in mind the Saturday-Wasters Motto:  I can do that later, I have all day.  

Scrubs and NCIS reruns are great at sucking you in, so just plop your butt in the nearest most comfortable location, turn on the TV and allow yourself to zone out.  As one episode leads into another (because as luck would have it, there’s a marathon!) you’ll forget all about that “To Do” list.  

Take a nap, check Facebook, re-check Facebook, make yourself some tea, snuggle with your pet(s), check Facebook once more, and before you know it, it’ll be Saturday night and you will have successfully accomplished absolutely nothing.  Congratulations, you’ve just perfected the art of wasting a perfectly good Saturday!