How to miss a bus...

I'd quite like to think that, over the years, I've developed a number of skills that keep me in gainful employment. 

Alongside this, and clearly more by accident than design, I have accumulated another set of talents for the workplace. This goes beyond the gentle art of procrastination - if you are serious enough you can ensure you miss the bus, the train, or the whole journey to work.

1. Set your alarm to wake you at 6.00 - but opt for p.m. rather than a.m.
2. If your kind-hearted partner wakes you anyway, regain control of the day with the following bathroom routine:
• choose to brush your teeth with the electric toothbrush that needs re-charging - put it on to charge and wait........
• while waiting for the toothbrush, decide to pluck your eyebrows. Discover that someone has borrowed the tweezers and put them somewhere safe. Look in the kitchen cutlery drawer, the toolbox in the cupboard-under-the-stairs, down the back of the sofa and under the bed. Finally check the shelf in front of the mirror in your daughter's bedroom, which will turn out to be the safest place in the house
• part-way through plucking, become distracted by the number of grey hairs that have appeared overnight. Decide that you can't afford a hairdresser's appointment, and that pulling them out individually will be just as effective. Do not use the reclaimed tweezers for this - try, with clumsy early morning fingers and thumb to separate out each grey hair and pull.
• while looking in the mirror, notice over your right shoulder the intricate cobweb building in the corner of the bathroom ceiling. Take this opportunity to do some spontaneous spring cleaning.
3. Feeling the buzz of positive goodwill engendered by the burst of cleaning, take the hoover out of the cupboard under the stairs to attack the rest of the nooks and crannies in the house.
4. Realise that the hoover bag needs changing. Note the absence of any spare bags, but refuse to be beaten by this minor set-back. Opt instead for emptying the existing one into the compost bin (probably best to get dressed before completing this action)
5. If you've followed my advice about dressing before going to the compost bin, you will now need to change your dust-and-muck decorated clothes.
6. Acknowledge that the alternative skirt you've selected from the overcrowded wardrobe is definitely in need of an iron. Set up the ironing board and plug in the iron. While waiting for the iron to heat, do not be tempted to go and check if the toothbrush is now fully charged.Only after the iron has reached the required temperature should you look to see if there is any water for steam.
7. Decide you don't have time to fill the water compartment, so dry-iron your skirt. This will, naturally take much longer than steam-ironing and will be much less effective.
8. Once dressed, return to the now-charged toothbrush and carefully polish your molars, incisors and canines for the designated 2 minutes.
9. Drop blue gel toothpaste down your freshly ironed skirt. You will now need to change your fluoride decorated clothes. 
10. Repeat steps 6 & 7.

And so it goes on...Trust me, there is a skill to this.