Racing the clock

"Greetings, Agent Parent. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to finish a major work project, complete with Power Point presentation, while also driving kids to music lessons and the dog to the vet. Pick up dinner somewhere and have it on the table by the time your weary spouse gets home. Spend three hours overseeing homework, washing dishes and resolving disputes before falling into bed, exhausted. This Palm Pilot will self-destruct in 10 seconds."

(Cue theme music: "Dum-dum. Da-dum. Dum-dum. Da-dum. Dum-dum. Da-dum. Dum-dum. Da-dum. Tweedle-dee. Tweedle-dum. You're late!")

Modern life has become "Mission Impossible." Working parents can't make a move without synchronizing our watches -- or, at least, our calendars -- and most days are filled to the brim.

To meet all our daily appointments, we need organizational skills and coordination and communication. We share responsibilities with our "team," assembled for their special abilities -- spouse, coworkers, carpoolers, cleaning lady, yard guy, babysitter, travel agent, in-laws. We schedule everything down to the exact minute.

And still we find ourselves zooming through traffic at the last possible second, turning a routine trip to the orthodontist into an action-movie driving sequence.

(That maniac you saw in traffic today? The one who nearly mowed you down with a minivan while trying to simultaneously drive, talk on the phone and discipline children in the back seat? Five will get you 10 they were late for soccer practice.)

Most of us have demanding jobs, chock-full of appointments and sales meetings and other time-wasters, and we speed through them so we have time left to do actual work. Quitting time gets pushed back, later and later, until it sometimes seems simpler to set up a cot in the workplace.

Things don't settle down once we finally do shake free; just the opposite. Our children have too many activities, all of which require transportation, typically all the way across town. We need family time and exercise time and laundry time and a few hours' sleep and, please, oh, please, just a few minutes to collect ourselves. Because tomorrow we do it all over again.

Everything must go like clockwork. Throw in a dental appointment or a flat tire or a special homework project or -- gulp! -- an unexpected business trip, and it all goes kablooey. Work goes unfinished. Dinner is forgotten. Children are left waiting at curbs, collecting resentment they can reveal to their psychiatrists years from now.

Families coordinate these impossible missions in different ways. Some use a universal calendar, where everyone in the family gets to note appointments and events. Others do everything electronically, sending e-mails and instant messages with constant updates (this technique has the added benefit of allowing family members to avoid each other). Some skip planning altogether, rushing around willy-nilly, everybody late all the time, until the parents keel over with heart attacks and the children become wards of the state.

At our house, we use a combination of methods. A technophobe, I use an actual paper calendar, where I write cryptic little notes to keep track of everything. My wife tracks everything by computer. Once a week, we synchronize our calendars.

Is our system working? Let's put it this way: If you see my minivan hurtling through traffic, you might want to drive up onto the nearest sidewalk where it's safe. Because here's what playing on my car stereo: "Dum-dum. Da-dum…"

The language of Calabama

While putting gas in my minivan, I note the nearest car, which is a banged-up piece of crap last cleaned around 1983. The driver's a tattooed goober in a gimme cap. His obese wife lethargically chews gum as if it were cud. Beanie Babies fill the rear windshield.

Their bumper sticker: "We speak English in this country -- Learn It or Leave!"

Take me with you when you go, por favor.

Windshield warriors

Many people have become so attached to their cell phones, they've become like gun owners -- you'll take their phones only when you pry them from their cold, dead hands.

Which, if they're using the phone while driving, is exactly what can happen.

Numerous studies have found that talking on a cell phone while behind the wheel is such a distraction, is so debilitating to attentiveness, the motorist might as well be driving drunk. All over the country, lawmakers are drafting bans on talking-on-the-phone-while-driving in an attempt to stem the rising tide of phone-related accidents.

(California's hands-free-phoning-only law takes effect July 1.)

Imagine my surprise then when, while thumbing through a business magazine, I saw this headline: "If You're a Windshield Warrior, Here's the Technology to Make Your Car Your Desk."
What followed was an article that described such hot new gizmos as hands-free cell phones, GPS navigation systems, wireless headphones, DVD players, satellite radio subscriptions and wireless Internet access. These technological wonders are described as "very cool new tools . . . to turn the cockpit of your car into a terrific office."

This makes as much sense as saying you can turn your office into a car. Or your airplane seat into a "flotation device."

Just when you thought it couldn't get any scarier on the roadways, here comes a whole new generation of motorist distractions. It's bad enough that other drivers are weaving all over the road, yakking with their friends and eating fast food while steering with their knees. Now we've got to worry that the guy in the speeding SUV next to us is reading his e-mail? Or, mapping out his next destination on a GPS locator? Or, God help us, watching "Mad Max" on his DVD?

Call me an old fogey (you wouldn't be the first; I've got teen-agers at home), but I remember when driving was considered a matter of complete concentration. Hands on the wheel at 10 and 2 o'clock, eyes on the road, mind on full alert. When you were driving, you weren't doing anything else.

Now, drivers are doing everything else, except watching where they're going. Which leaves the rest of us terrified, clutching the wheel in a death-grip while our fellow motorists drift from lane to lane.

You'll never catch me using a cell phone while driving. One, I don't feel competent enough as a driver or a cell phone user to do both at the same time. Two, I usually forget to take the phone with me so it languishes at home while I'm chugging around in my car. Three, I don't have so many friends or so much urgent business to conduct that I need to talk and drive at the same time. Phone calls can wait. I'm busy dodging the other gabbing motorists.

I'll never, ever, get those other technological toys to use in the car. It's just too dangerous. I love e-mail as much as the next fellow, but trying to manage it while behind the wheel could give a whole new meaning to the term "computer crash." A GPS locator? I'd rather be lost. Better to pull over and use a regular old road map. Or, (insert gasp of horror from male readership here) ask someone for directions.

But if you insist on using your car for an office, I have a suggestion. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on all these gimcracks, use the money to hire a chauffeur. Then you can sit in the back seat and work all you want while a professional handles the driving.

Hire a driver who can sing, and you won't even need the radio. Just make sure the chauffeur knows to hold it down when you're on the phone.

All the rage

Spring is in the air, and a young man's thoughts turn to rage.

With the arrival of warm weather, cities are plagued by a blossoming of orange barrels and blinking sawhorses as all streets are demolished and rebuilt. Everywhere you turn, signs say, "Seek Alternate Route" until you end up back where you started. Motorists spend all day sitting in hot vehicles stalled in traffic, becoming edgier and more aggressive until words or fender paint are exchanged. Some short-fuse guy starts screaming and swinging or, worse, shooting a gun.

Suddenly, detours are the least of the problem.

Road rage has gotten a lot of media attention in the past few years, and airline rage is becoming more common all the time. But many other forms of rage exist in our hectic world. These rage phenomena have been overlooked by the press and the government, but they represent a ticking bomb that could detonate any second into senseless violence and random bad vibes.

Rage can happen anywhere, anytime, but you can protect yourself by becoming familiar with the symptoms of impending furor and by avoiding places where rage likely will erupt. Post offices, for instance.

Here, then, are some types of rage to watch out for:

--Home Improvement Store Rage: A man who's making his fourth trip of the day to a hardware store is only one metric-sized nut away from true rage. These guys roam the warehouse aisles, holding a broken part, grumbling to themselves while desperately searching for the correct replacement. And nothing fits. They can't remember what the other thing was they were supposed to buy. And they have to keep dodging those beeping forklifts. Next thing you know, our aspiring Bob Vila has become Attila the Hun.

This form of rage is particularly dangerous because there are so many blunt instruments and lethal gizmos at hardware superstores. Think nail guns.

--Package Rage: This form usually occurs within the home and, fortunately, causes only brief outbursts. It's triggered when a person tries to open a box of cereal or other packaged good and finds the words "Open Other End." For the thousandth time.

--Jogger's Rage: Rarely makes the news because joggers usually are armed with nothing more dangerous than underwear and $200 sneakers. But, trust me, they're really angry. Joggers often are set off by more sensible people who are driving cars in air-conditioned comfort. Various road hazards also cause this rage. See: "Curb Your Dog Rage."

--Personal Computer Rage: There's a reason it's called a computer "crash."

--Gardening Rage: Often triggered by defenseless animals such as gophers and rabbits, this rage can be particularly dangerous to the gardener himself and to anyone sipping beer nearby, particularly if said gardener happens to be holding a rake at the time.

--Plumbing Rage: From the slow torture of drip, drip, drip to the barked knuckles to the eventual flood damage, plumbing is rife with potential rage. Every fitting has to be tight enough that not a molecule of water can escape. But not too tight or it won't work. This form of rage often manifests itself in anti-social behavior such as cursing and "plumber's cleavage."

--Lawn Sprinkler Rage: See "Plumbing Rage."

--Rave Rage: Most prevalent in fathers whose daughters stay out dancing until 4 a.m. Highly explosive.

--Phone Rage: A particularly virulent form of rage with a variety of triggers: telemarketers, poor reception, midnight wrong-number calls from mysterious guys named Guido. Cellular phones have introduced a whole new format -- phone rage mixed with the ever-popular road rage. Call for our new safety brochure: "Hang up and Drive, You Idiot."

--Age Rage: The feeling, every time you look in the mirror, that you want to spit. Sometimes results in bizarre behavior such as radical plastic surgery and the purchase of sports cars.

--Rage Against the Darkness and the Light: For people who are angry all the time.

Now that you're more informed about rage, take the proper steps to shield yourself from it. Forewarned is forearmed. Get forewarned enough, you'll have arms like Popeye.

Just kidding. I didn't mean you look like Popeye. Did not. Aw, come on. Gee, you don't have to get mad about it. Hey, put down that rake . . .