Lawn Mower Conversations

I coined this term years ago and often wonder if anyone else does the same thing. Whenever I'm involved in some physical task that requires virtually no outlay of mental power (such as mowing the lawn), my mind wanders through a variety of subjects, but most of the time I end up having conversations.

No, I don't mean talking to myself and I definitely don't mean hearing voices (Attention Mental Ward: Stand down, stand down!). I mean going over what you're going to say to the customer service representative later when you call about your broken or lost blurfl, or how you wish you had responded when that yahoo at work called you a pencil necked geek (and you can never come up with the right response at the time—but later, when mowing the lawn, they're toast).

Don't you ever do that? Sometimes I've worked up some excellent dialogue for future potential exchanges—strategy sessions I guess you could call them—as I go back and forth, around the tree, cutting an increasingly smaller rectangle in the yard.

Of course I've expanded the concept considerably—on a trip on the interstate when the conversation with SWMBO is lagging, organizing the bills, sorting laundry, doing dishes…(yeah, I help out…sometimes). But I still call them lawn mower conversations. I wonder if anyone else does that. Next time I mow the lawn, I'll have to discuss it.

Last updated: 27 January 2009