The Useless Panda Situation

"Useless Panda": to be pathetic and useless out of a feeling of sadness or uselessness, usually originating with an inability to motivate oneself to do actual work or accomplish anything.

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The term "Useless Panda" came into glorious being to describe my sister when I got home from work one day last week to see her sitting on my bed looking a little like this:

Looking pathetic, sad and useless because she
had run out of activities to fuel her procrastination.



She had a big paper due the next day and had literally spent her entire day finding one activity after another that was more pressing than just writing the damn paper.

It went like this:

Wake up at 8:00am. Roll over....Wake up at 9:14am. Roll over....Wake up at 10:17am. Roll over....

Wake up at 10:42am. Give up and wake up already. Remind self that paper is due tomorrow morning.

Go into bathroom and brush teeth for 26 minutes. Decide to destroy organizational bins I had painstakingly put into place to find teeth whitening strips for the divine purpose of multitasking.

Apply tooth whitening apparatus.Vow to write paper after this.

Whiten teeth while watching vital TV program about migration of butterflies.

Look at computer. Vow to write paper.

Go downstairs and clean living area for several hours.

Make snack in the kitchen while vowing to write paper.

Go upstairs with snack. Eat snack while watching Court TV. Vow to write paper when done.

Go downstairs and drag/push the heavy-ass vacuum cleaner up the stairs.

Clean entire upstairs including roommate's room. (He was torn between whining that she went in there and being pleased that his shower was clean.)

Vow to write paper.

Take shower and attempt to shave legs. Run out of motivation to do even that. Feel sad because she doesn't even want to shave her legs. Vigorously scrub feet instead.

Vow to write paper.

Decide there is a need for brain food before a paper can be written. Go downstairs. Bake muffins.

Take muffin upstairs (roommate politely tries to glean a single
muffin, tell roommate to make his own damn muffin).

Sit in front of computer with muffin and politely suggest that the paper writes itself.

Blink at computer. Concentrate.

Cock head to one side. (Nothing happens.)

Cry. Uselessly. Big, hiccuping sobs of pathetic uselessness.

This is when I came home to see her sitting there, like this:

^ Most useless person ever.

 
She hiccuped, showed me the remnants of her muffin, her very clean feet and her paper on which she had typed her name and the date.

I ended up having to make her do half-assed, pathetic jumping jacks  to get her to stop crying.

Hence the term "Useless Panda". It doesn't have to make sense. Just let it happen.