Monday, November 03, 2008

In an ongoing epic struggle between the forces of motivation and sloth, one woman stands alone. Tirelessly, day in and day out, she fights for what she believes in, what she knows will make the world a better place. She is The Occupational Juggler. By morning, a dedicated housewife with a feather duster in her hand; by day, a hardworking employee in a busy restaurant; by night, a student with an insatiable thirst for homework. Can the Occupational Juggler save the planet, write a report about it, and still have time to make her husband a souffle?

Last time, on The Occupational Juggler, our fearless heroine was dangling from the precipice of Insane Overtime Gulch.

"I should have known this wasn't a good place to have a picnic," she exclaimed. With the remains of her lunch lost to the raging river below and her blood sugar in dangerously low levels, any other would have given up in despair. But not so the Occupational Juggler. In her trusty back pocket compartment, beneath her driving license and food-testing thermometer, lay her grappling hook and crossbow. In an astounding feat, she one handedly loaded, cocked, and fired this indispensible implement and in no time, climbed up the rope that had imbedded into a signpost. Brushing off her hands and smoothing back her hair, she read: "Warning: precipice ahead."

If only she had paid attention in the first place to the warning signs. "Next time I'll think ahead," she intoned, and whipped out a bean burrito from her emergency rations kit in her trusty back pocket compartment.

On her way back to finish up her dishes, she nearly stumbled over a pile of unpaired socks. Out of it jumped a vicious trigonometry-geometry mutant. With ears like the square root of 1/2 and a gaping mouth lined with acute-angled teeth, it had her cornered in an instant, with only three unmatched socks for protection.

Can our heroine remember the formula for solving quadratic equations? Will the Law of Sines distract the mutant long enough for her to make her escape? And will she make it back in time to save dinner? Find out next time on

The Occupational Juggler

2 comments:

Abe and Tracy Poulsen said...

Oh how I miss you sometimes. Promise to write more adventures soon and to share them with me. Do you still paint or draw? I was thinking how lovely it would be to be able to display some piece of your artwork.

Adam and Jennie MacPherson Family said...

It is a good thing you don't have children right now :)! I can relate to your character. Piles of laundry, meals to cook, house to clean, diapers to change, children to send to school, their homework to help with, friends needing help, babysitting extra kids, groceries needing bought, husband demanding attention, baby needing a nap, children screaming, and single me trying to find one moment of silence to actually breathe...yea I can relate :).