#5. Though I am generally considered to be a bright (enough) person, something in my brain inexplicably heads south when I find myself facing any official-looking document that has spaces I am supposed to fill in with various types of information. I have no idea why this happens. I suddenly develop a weird tunnel vision thingy where the edges of my peripheral vision start blurring, the words on the paper or screen appear to be twice their size AND written in Mandarin Chinese, and my ears fill with the same kind of rushing train sound that many of my fellow Arkansans have described as hearing right before the tornado struck their trailer park.
#4. I over-think e v e r y t h i n g. In my earnest attempt to do it all perfectly like the good girl I am, I agonize over each and every question. This includes the ones where all I have to do is check a box. I’m sure there’s some hidden nuance there that I might be missing unless I read it over and over a minimum of three times, and even then I’m not quite sure that it’s not a trick question put in there to purposely trip me up. Wait, there’s a name for people like that–what is it again…? Oh, yes: Paranoid. AND I AM THEIR QUEEN.
#3. I’m convinced there are secret squads of Form Filling-Out Police that are waiting to pounce if I answer something incorrectly. (See above.) Or that there is a special bulletin board in the break room of whatever company/corporate/medical/government entity whose form I am currently filling out where they post the particularly inept/bad examples/multiply-erased copies– and then they all point and snicker at them and feel all superior while they sit and sip their stupid coffee. I just hate them. (If they, you know, actually existed.)
#2. I start developing a bad attitude about halfway through the process, which only serves to make me even more nervous and further distracts me. My inner dialogue goes something like this: “OK, this is ridiculous! There has to be an easier way to get information. Who has time to do this? I mean, seriously– if they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they invent a life-size doppelganger robot who can fill out all necessary forms for me for the rest of my life? IS THAT SO HARD???”
#1. And finally? The number one reason I suck at filling out forms is because I know deep in my heart that one wrong answer could cause untold devastation and ruin innocent lives and possibly end civilization as we know it. I’m sure there’s data out there to back me up on this one. I betcha there are many, many stories of people who inadvertently checked something they shouldn’t, or timed-out one too many times, or accidentally used the wrong state abbreviation (Shut up. It happens.) and all hell broke loose– like for instance, forms could be sent to the wrong address, or applications could be declared null and void, or babies could be repossessed by hospitals, or there could be a massive IRS audit… OR MADI’S COLLEGE MIGHT DECIDE TO UN-ACCEPT HER BECAUSE THEY HAD SERIOUS CONCERNS ABOUT LETTING THE OFFSPRING OF SUCH AN OBVIOUSLY INEPT FORM-FILLER-OUTER MOTHER LOOSE ON THEIR UNSUSPECTING CAMPUS!
(Theoretically, of course.)
