Shortcutting

"There are no shortcuts in life - only those we imagine."

                    --Frank Leahy, legendary Notre Dame football coach

Ah, but legendary Coach Leahy! I have spent my entire earthly span imagining shortcuts! And even though none of them have exactly panned out, my hope springs eternal.

As a young teen yearning to look like an emaciated model, I sought Quick Weight Loss Shortcuts, because who wanted to actually diet and exercise? My most memorable of these was this hideous pouffy jumpsuit you could order in the mail, that was guaranteed to maximize your speedy slimming results. I would put on the jumpsuit, which made me look like the Michelin Tire man, and go jump rope. Almost immediately I would start to sweat profusely in my snappy nylon outfit. I envisioned the pounds and inches just melting away—and they did! Until the next time I ate or drank something! Darn you, non-refundable pouffy jumpsuit!

I’ve also fallen for a series of CDs that promised fluency in an incredibly brief period: Italian, German, Spanish, French and Gaelic languages. Now granted, I never really followed the language learning plan, just popped the CDs randomly into the player in my car, and half-listened as I drove. Alas, I can now speak only a few disjointed phrases of everything, a useless foreign alphabet soup.

As a mom, I counted on pediatrician and author Richard Ferber to rapidly, and permanently, “Solve My Child’s Sleep Problems.” Unfortunately, the Ferber method involved a lot of screaming (both me and the baby), and I always caved in, went in, picked up and rocked my infant. My offspring therefore did not reliably sleep through the night until puberty.

Over the years I have learned that instant mashed potatoes do not taste like real ones. Instant coffee is a whole different beverage than brewed java. All of my music and sports lessons were abandoned as soon as I discovered they would take years of effort to achieve mastery. Everything worthwhile just takes a lot of time, and that is unacceptable to me. I even find it takes a ton of time to learn the computer keyboard shortcuts themselves (how ironic!) Sigh.

But I’m not alone in my quest for successful shortcuts. On this date in 1308, Scottish philosopher Duns Scotus died. He was the inventor of the dunce cap, which was named after him. While we all picture the hapless young fellow sitting in the corner in the old school house, originally the cap was supposed to make the wearer smarter. Knowledge was, in theory, flowing down from the point of the cap, into the person’s head. Sadly, it didn’t work, and dunce caps came to symbolize—well, dunces. But it COULD have worked! Wasn’t it worth a try?

Poor guy!

And so, Coach, I will continue to imagine incredible, amazing shortcuts in life. And as I pull out my still-wrinkled shirt, which I’d thrown back in the dryer (the heat is supposed to eliminate the need for ironing), I will put it on, and imagine that I look freshly pressed. So there!