Last Laugh
GOLD FOR A DAY By Lauren Hammack
THERE’S NOTHING I ENJOY MORE THAN AN ONLINE PERSONALITY TEST. One of my favorites is the TrueColors™ assessment, which identifies four personality styles and associates a color (orange, gold, green and blue) to each temperament. Everyone, the test states, has a combination of color-coded traits to varying degrees. I am a Blue/Orange mix. Blue personalities are tender-hearted and want to help others. (Check.) Orange personalities are impulsive and easily distracted by the movement of a ceiling fan or the glint of a shiny object. (Double-check.) My last color is gold. Gold personalities are the punctual, organized task-masters who love rules and who live by the mantra, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” In my dominant
Blue/Orange world, there was never a place for everything. “A bomb went off and that’s where things landed,” says the Orange in me. “But I feel just terrible about it,” says the Blue in me. According to one source, we become better rounded and more effective when we get in touch with our “last” color. For me, a lastcolor Gold, that means making a plan, sticking with the plan and seeing the plan through to completion, even if it kills me to do it. “It will be fun to be a Gold for a few days!” says the Orange in me. “I can journal about my feelings on being a Gold,” says the Blue in me. It’s settled. I’m going for Gold. For a Blue/Orange, it’s a foreign, uncharted existence, made of organization and planning. I’m going to need a planner. And to do it right, I’ll design my own.
A BLUE/ORANGE’S “GOLD FOR A DAY” back to Office Depot to purchase more label tape. While there, test THE GOAL •theRunergonomic features of each mouse on display. Linger on the day planner
Devise and design a custom time management system that will utilize a day planner that doesn’t exist in stores.
THE EXECUTION
aisle and look at every single planner to be sure I’m not missing an important section/feature in my specially designed planner.
to home office paper sorting and unearth a heartfelt essay, penned •byReturn Run up to Office Depot to check pricing on a spiral-making machine. •Make a young Hammack fawn. Determine that THIS will be the year I start no decision. Make no purchase.
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Spend the rest of the morning messing around with margins and alignment of my special planner pages. Check Pinterest to see if there are cute ideas for planners and, some•how, end up on the backyard lighting section. Dig in the shed for luminarias purchased during my fleeting (but •intense) backyard lighting impulse of 2002. Make a list of invites for an evening backyard party, featuring the •three remaining luminarias I find in the shed.
scrapbooking.
Curse Office Depot for not being open at 2 a.m. Go to Walmart instead and •hover on scrapbooking aisle for 45 minutes, followed by the office supply aisles for another half hour. Search for the perfect journal and evaluate the smoothness of its paper. Find the best pen for the smoothest paper. Snatch up the right container to hold scrapbooking materials and assorted patterned scissors accumulated during this trip. Decide that some chips and RoTel dip sound reeeeeeeally good at 3 a.m. Get enough ingredients to make several heat-and-eat batches, which will be divided into single-serve food containers. Return to container aisle to peruse the Gladware selection for 15 minutes. Stop by the greeting card aisles to read cards, even though there’s no holiday or birthday on the immediate horizon – just the sunrise now.
a second run to Office Depot because the alignment issue has •nowMake While unpacking arts and crafts supplies and Ro-Tel, hear something outra•geous depleted the printer’s ink supply. during late-night TV and stop everything to watch. See that it’s Gump
• While replacing ink, notice all the random stuff on my home office desk. Clear desk = clear mind. Go through every last piece of paper in the •room and sort. Stop in the middle of sorting to go to Office Depot for colored, 3-tab •folders to hold every scrap of paper.
• Immediately label each file folder with the label maker. Jack with label maker settings for 30 minutes to override the tape•wasting wide margins. • Accept the defeat that comes with not being smarter than the label maker. 94 SLICE // MARCH 2015
Week on AMC and watch “Forrest Gump” on continuous loop. While scanning the TV directory for the next “Hoarders” marathon, stumble over HGTV and wonder what color would look good on the walls of my home office.
Dig for paint swatches and make a mental list of paint color names I would •have used on the swatches. Go out to garage and rummage through old paint cans to find that “good •white” I used on the trim that one time. Look inside a donation box that never
got picked up and see if I can find a missing sling-back shoe. Try on 15 shoes. Carry 12 of them back inside.
• Decide I probably wouldn’t stick to a day planner anyway and go to bed. • Close my eyes and thank my lucky stars I’m not a Gold personality.