The Atlantic Monthly

I’ve got some big news to share! A short (very short) essay that I wrote is going to be published in The Atlantic Monthly! The cfp asked submitters to write, in 300 words, their interpretation of the American Idea.

Originally, I received this as an assignment for class. The professor called it a “live experiment” in professional writing. Interestingly, knowing that my classmates would be reading my essay, caused me to struggle a bit when I sat down to write. They would certainly all choose to write from a critical perspective, and knowing that made me go back and forth as to whether I should therefore choose a more positive view point. In the end, I decided simply to write what came to me naturally. If you’d like, you can read it below or on the Atlantic website by clicking here.

A Twenty-Four-Seven Society’s “To-do” List:
Number 35: Buy Lawn Chair

It’s 11:39 pm but it is urgent, critical even, that I buy a lawn chair this instant! Thankfully, the American interpretation of time, the child of Puritan punctuality and Fordism efficiency, has now twisted itself into an obsession with twenty-four-hour shopping. Within a ten-mile radius of my home, I can find three Wal-marts, a Wegmans grocers, and two CVS drugstores with doors still open, lights still burning, and cheery cashiers with open registers.

I need to be awake by 6:00 am, and yet here I stand, brain-fried at 11:51 pm staring at my local Wal-mart’s selection of lawn chairs. Watching the customers to my left and right, I conclude that midnight must also be the appropriate hour for buying prom dresses, new chainsaws, and bakery items.

What has happened in America to make this acceptable? Why am I not in bed? Why is this store full? Because at the core of the American Idea is time, and a rather sick interpretation thereof. The same idea that keeps me reading my e-mails at 1:00 am keeps America’s parking lots packed after midnight; our obsession to beat the clock – to cross items off our never-ending “to-do” lists.