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Three ways to waste timeduring the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is a waste of time.Charles Hartley



With that in mind, during Sunday's behemoth boondoggle I recommend you take wasting time to new heights.

Your goal should be - trust me on this - is to waste more time and be less productive during the game than any one of the 100 billion who will tune in.

For your first time-wasting task, take out a yellow notepad. As the first quarter unfolds, doodle pictures of what you see. Draw doodles of whatever you think is not worth doodling such as a sideline cameraman, a speckle of dust of your TV set, the TV wire on your living room floor, or a person in the stands who looks dull and non-reflective.

Once you finish three doodles, get scissors. Cut out your doodles. Take them outside in your backyard. Drop them on the ground. Stand there for one hour and 45 minutes. Don't move. Your job is to think about nothing. Focus on that word: nothing. Visualize it. Once one hour and 45 minutes have elapsed, pick up the doodles, walk into your front yard, and punt each doodle in succession with your right foot.

The paper won't elevate. No matter. You will have killed time. This should get you to the half-time show.

Second, go to your junk drawer. Every house has one. Yours will be an eclectic spread of something similar to broken screwdrivers, unsharpened pencils, photos of your kids playing on the swing set, balls of cotton and the like.

Dump everything onto your living room floor. Organize the junk by categories. Put the tools, such as the screwdriver and paint scraper, in one area. Cluster the office supplies, such as pens and yellow post-it notes, in another area. And so on.

Then - and this is critical - walk around your house searching for other things to add to the junk drawer. If you find things that don't belong in any of the groupings you created, be strong. This might be a Raisinette you find underneath a den couch or a hair pin worn by your daughter in kindergarten. Be open-minded.

Drop to your hands and knees and look under every bed in the house. There is bound to be something in there that, in your gut, you believe should be in the junk drawer. Before you commit to doing anything with this new-found junk, hesitate for 25 minutes. This will waste time. The longer you hesitate the more time will run by.

Don't move until you are sure the fourth quarter has begun.

Then, instead of actually putting the new junk you find into the drawer, lay it all out on the floor with the other junk. Don't expedite. Avoid efficiency. Drag this process out.

Midway through the fourth quarter, embark on your third and final time-wasting trek, which is full-blown investigation of the inside of your loafers. Go in your closet and grab them. Sit on the floor. Peer into one of them. Notice the color and texture. See what brand is it. Go to your computer and Google the brand name. Once you get it called up, do not - I implore you - do not read it. Go back to the shoe. Smell it. If it smells, smell it again. Judge the smell. Go get the yellow notepad on which you doodled.

Scribble lines to make a makeshift chart. Along the X axis write in separated columns "smells like Newark, New Jersey," "smells like my high school locker room rest room" and "smells like a trash dumper." Along the Y axis create two rows. In the first row write "left shoe" and in the second "right shoe." Put a check mark in the appropriate box for each shoe.

By this time the Super Bowl will be over. You will have wasted more time during the game than anyone else.

Don't devalue this. You outperformed 100 billion people.

In my mind, you will deserve to be awarded the NFL's Vince Lombardi Trophy.

- Charles Hartley

Charles Hartley is a freelance writer who has had more than 1,000 articles published in a wide range of media outlets focused on humor, sports, business, technology and consumers. He has earned master's degrees in journalism and business administration and a bachelor's degree in English and communications.

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