Time Enough At Last

There was an old Twilight Zone episode -- you probably remember it -- about a busy man who longs for the chance to read books. Then there's some kind of global catastrophe and he finds himself the last person in the world. He also finds that the only building to survive the catastrophe is his local library, full of, you guessed it, all the books he's longed to read. As he blissfully begins his first novel, his glasses fall off. Blind and fumbling, he steps on them, crunching them to bits. Rod Serling walks onto the screen to point out the bitter irony. All the books in the world, and time enough at last to read them... and the poor guy can't see.

Similarly, I've been out of work for a while, and stressed about finding a job, and hating every moment of my idle time. But now that I have a job lined up, I'm angry that I wasn't able to appreciate the longest vacation of my life. And I want more, so I can appreciate it better.

On second thought, I'm not sure my situation bears any resemblance to that Twilight Zone episode. Except that Rod Serling just appeared in my kitchen.