Look - geting assignments done on the weekend isn't as easy as people think. You might say, "Well, just get up at eight o'clock Saturday morning, get dressed, and have breakfast at nine. Relax for an hour. Then hack away at your homework, concentrate while doing it, and be finished before the afternoon kicks in." Unfortunately, you'd be wrong.

For the average procrastinator (let's take me, for example), it goes more like this: slowly gain consciousness in bed, an hour after the alarm rings, at about 10: 00. Try to sleep with a pillow over your head for twenty drowsy minutes or so. See if you can drown out the sound of your radio alarm clock. Doesn't work, does it? Stretch out, and consider getting up. Then think, naaah. Contemplate the pros and cons of removing yourself from your bed for another half hour. Assure yourself that you're going to have to get out of bed at some point - maybe. Resort to rolling to the edge and pushing yourself off, realizing that the only person who will make you get up is you. Now remove all blankets and pillow, and place them in the most ridiculously unorganized arrangement possible in the middle of your room. It should now be at least 11: 00. Yawn, and wonder why you ever made yourself do this. Stumble around in the shower for another ten minutes, alternating between consciousness and Never-Never Land, until you figure out you're supposed to be cleaning yourself - with some soap. Don't forget to turn off the shower, towel dry, and proceed to slowly place articles of clothing upon you until it hits you that your drawer is empty.

The challenge now lies in eating breakfast. Decide it's not worth it at the time and watch some T.V. (The hands on the clock should now tell you that it's 11: 45 and you haven't done anything yet.) By 12: 00, at the demand of a rather rudely noisy stomach, gobble down a few cream cheese-covered bagels and then wash your hands. If any thoughts occur to you pertaining even slightly to the possibility of doing your homework, push them out of your head immediately and start dreaming up some more productive ways to waste time. This is easily done by lying to yourself and saying it would be good to relax and play a few computer games before you tackle those assignments. After bravely dueling and bringing to their death forty-three Lissogs, eighteen Sethrons, nine Fire Lizards, and gaining four levels of experience, you become annoyed by that whirring fan inside your computer and put the machine back into a deep sleep. Consider that you still have several hours left in the day to squander, so you don't have to start your homework just yet. If you can fool yourself into thinking that, you'll believe anything.

By now, you should have gotten sick of that stupid clock reminding you that time keeps ticking away, so turn its menacing face towards the wall and/or unplug the stupid thing.

When you've chickened out of a dangerous expedition to the cave of that monstrous "school bag," take several laps around the house to work off those pangs of guilt. By now, the sky should be dimming and the fact dawns on you that you have wasted almost the entire day. At this time, you might find yourself running out of ways to evade your responsibilities, so give your homework the resepect it deserves by thinking about it for about three seconds. At 6: 17, when your friend calls to go out to that movie that you just haven't been dying to see, you decide that doing homework isn't one tenth as important as having a little pseudo-fun and you toss the whole idea out the window while you toss a lousy excuse for a dinner into your mouth.

You arrive home, exhausted from your busy, productive day, just in time to catch the last few minutes of "Saturday Night Live". You then collapse into bed, reassuring yourself that you have the entire next day to do your homework. n