The Doldrums of March

Milo and Tock from The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth is one of my favorite childhood books, SUCH a favorite that even talking about it makes me want to drive to a bookstore and buy it so that I can re-read it (for about the millionth time).  Lately, the only way I've been able to describe the month of March has been as "the Doldrums," a colorless place in the book where thinking and laughing are not allowed.  Here's a little piece of the book to let you know what it's like (spoken by the Lethargians, who live in the Doldrums):


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"Well, if you can't laugh or think, what can you do?" asked Milo.


"Anything as long as it's nothing, and everything as long as it isn't anything," explained another. "There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule- at 8 o'clock we get up, and then we spend from 8 to 9 daydreaming.  From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.  From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.  From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.  From ll:00 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.  From l:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.  From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.  From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.  From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.  From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.  From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.  From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.  As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done."


"You mean you'd never get anything done," corrected Milo.


"We don't want to get anything done," snapped another angrily; "we want to get nothing done, and we can do that without your help."


"You see," continued another in a more conciliatory tone, "It's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?"


"I might as well," thought Milo; "that's where I seem to be going anyway."


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It's not that I've been doing nothing all month, and it's not like I haven't been thinking or laughing at all this month, but I'm definitely ready for Spring Break (and spring weather).  I can only hope that a giant dog with an alarm clock as a body comes to rescue me, or I get a note addressed to "Sara, who now knows the way."


I would make this post longer, but I really think I need to go buy this book again.