Wait a minute, wait for it...

I have a slight procrastination problem.

Give me a postmark deadline to complete rebate paperwork, and I'm frantically scrabbling together all of the necesary receipts, bar codes and signatures needed the night before. Hell, it's a good thing if I can find the receipts, first of all (my organizational woes are another issue).
Set me up with a kitchen full of fruits and other expirables for a week's worth of yummy meals, I'm scraping the mold off my tomatoes or slathering peanut butter over my bread to "moisten" it and fool my tastebuds two weeks later.

I've always been like this. As a youngster, during piano lessons, I'd wait until Monday night to start practicing the pieces due for my Thursday lesson; field trip today? "Ahh! Sign here, dot there Mom, hurry, herecomesthebus! See you after we get back!"

I guess this is why journalism never really freaked me out, with its deadlines and all. I'm pretty good at getting shit done at the last minute, head butting against reality all the way. But sometimes there are things that are out of my control, and as used to having things mostly go my way as I am, this means a big upset in my world when it doesn't happen the way it's supposed to.

Like today.
Never mind that I lost my passport last year because I had put off getting a new ID after losing my old one (organization what?), or that I thought about getting a new passport months ago.. I finally decided to make that happen today, when a spectacular trip now hangs in the balance (the balance being a mere five weeks). And never mind that I'd been thinking about checking on the travel credits I had with Delta in October to make sure they expired in March and not sooner..

Do I even need to say it? Should I wait any longer, or is it clear?
The airline credits expired earlier in the month. The passport "office" at the Post office closes at 4 pm, you need cash, and the price is going up tomorrow. I nI was there at 3 pm., but I never carry cash, I had an hour to find it, and with the blizzard going on outside, I was too far from a bank to get it done.

So the lesson here is a hard one, the kind I lean best. I'll be paying more for a passport than I could have, when I go get it done. I'll be paying more for a flight than I needed to, when I finally book it. I'll have these reminders to prompt me into action next time something needs doing. But for now, I'm at home, in out of the snow, and warm, temper tantrum avoided (although I snarled at every smiling person on Michigan Ave. on my way home).
I'd still like to pitch a fit abou the plane tickets, when I think about it, but eh. Why?
There's always tomorrow.