Listen up, this is important. When I was in fourth grade at Maple Grove Elementary School, a four-room schoolhouse at the corner of 32nd and Youngfield, I aced a magazine test, “Are you a scatterbrain?” (a scatterbrain is anybody incapable of concentration or serious thought.) I scored higher than any other student in the class.

On Field Day I couldn’t win a blue ribbon the high jump, tug-of-war, or the three-legged sack race, but I did win a trophy for winning the scatterbrain test.

Since my elementary school days, it has become easier for ordinary people to become a scatterbrain — due to changes in technology. Tricky marketers with no surplus of conscience have taken over every area of our lives and sold us on the idea that more is better, newer is better, and faster is better. The more stuff we buy the harder it is to focus and make good decisions, and they know it.

I don’t know about you, but my brain cannot keep up with the pace of change in technology. My daily choices multiply like rabbits. Although I had a period of relief during my late forties after the kids left the house, and could concentrate for a few minutes, it was shortlived. 

“Oh, she’s just a scatterbrain,” people say. At least it gives me an identity. Less judgemental types relate to this part of me because they are also scatterbrains and don’t feel so alone. 

If you’ve been hiding out in the woods focused but bored to death, here’s my advice of how to become a top of the line 2014 scatterbrain.

Get an iPhone. Send texts to your family and friends every hour. Talk on the phone as much as possible so your body will be in one place and your brain will be in another place.

At 7 a.m. look out the window and get dressed for the way the weather appears.  At noon you will either be freezing because you underdressed or overheated because you overdressed. Your mind will flicker with the rapid changes in weather as you switch from heat to air conditioning and back to heat in your vehicle.

Go to a deli-restaurant and choose between 45 sandwiches with choices of bread suggested by the counterperson “white, wheat, rye, non gluten, panini, toasted or untoasted, buttered or unbuttered”  If you’re having a side dish, you will be asked, “Baked potato, mashed, fries, quinoa, or rice, cold slaw or green beans? Noodles made of wheat or rice?” Scatter your brain around that!

Watch every murder trial and crime show on TV and let your mind dwell on the details while you are paying your bills.

Watch Jeopardy. Flunk all the answers to questions like what Roman emperor invaded Ireland in the first century B.C. Fill your mind with the worthless trivia you learn each night and watch the contestants make big bucks.

Feed the cat every time she meows.

Accept five invitations in a week where you are required to bring food.

Check your email every hour and save everything due to indecision until you have a long kite tail of at least a thousand messages.

Click on every popup.

Be brainwashed into switching from XP to windows 7 on your home computer. When four letter words don’t fix it, throw your computer in the lake.

If you live in the heart of the American culture in 2014 you may easily be doing all the things on my list.  If not, give it a try. You may succeed in becoming a scatterbrain.