*Robert Smith growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that the Open Office document that was forwarded to him by his publicist will not open in Word 2007,  thinking that the final papers for his civil suit against a local print shop business, who had mistakenly spelled his name as “Ropert Smith” on his latest batch of business cards, had arrived

*Robert Smith pretending to be asleep in hopes that the Cuban gentleman who is cutting across the side of his lawn- to get to the lake ranked “Best Bass Fishing in the County” in 2006- will not attempt to harm him or his family, jumping to a racial stereotype that the man is about to burglarize his home.

*Robert Smith trying to decide which trenchcoat he owns will best conceal a baseball bat, due to feeling uneasy about the sale of his 1978 Chevy Nova after the gentleman from Craigslist  insisted on meeting him in the parking lot of an abandoned strip club and assured him that he would be paying in cash, but would not be able to meet him until shortly after midnight.

*Robert Smith sitting in on a church’s youth support group at the local community center, in preparation for his new duties at the summer camp where he has secretly volunteered as a counselor for pregnant teens for the past four years.

*Robert Smith sheepishly leafing through his home dictionary to find the meaning of the word “prescience”, after a woman on the bus had used the term to describe an encounter she had with a panhandling war veteran that very morning on her way home from her accountant’s office.

*Robert Smith clumsily dropping (and cracking) a mirror while helping his neighbors rearrange their living room in order to make the room more spacious; the neighbor’s wife remarks that he would now have seven years of bad luck, and he smugly replies that he must have “dropped about 12 mirrors to account for this life”…which is immediately scoffed at by the neighbor’s wife as she guessed he couldn’t possibly be a day over 65 years old.

*Robert Smith perusing the magazine rack at the local chain bookstore to see if this is the month that Guitar World republishs the tab to Yes’ “Roundabout”, because he vaguely remembers seeing it many years ago while on tour in Japan and the ones he found online “aren’t quite right”.

*Robert Smith building a sandcastle at the beach, trying desperately to get it to resemble the Biltmore House, but instead it keeps sort of looking like an oversized Waffle House because the hearty wind keeps preventing the roof from reaching a triangular point.

*Robert Smith pleading with a tow-truck driver to not tow his car, as he had not seen the sign in the hotel parking lot clearly explaining that only guests were able to use the facilities; he walks back into the hotel to convince the desk workers that he had been there to visit a friend who had flown in on business, but foils his own plan by not being able to think of a fake name or room number, outing himself as a fraud.

*Robert Smith painting the trim along the exterior walls of his home with a paint gun, when all of a sudden he feels a wet sensation along the base of his neck where, in fact, a large cardinal had evacuated directly above him from the very tree branch that he swore he was going to have cut back before next hurricane season.

*Robert Smith, while walking his dog before going to bed, excitedly stumbles upon what appears to be a new hiking trail leading through the woods near the community park, but after walking roughly 1/5 of  a mile down the dirt path, he comes to the realization that he has only found the future driveway of a new neighbor’s home.

*Robert Smith trying unsuccessfully to balance an egg on his coffee table when he begins to think that maybe the Winter Solstice was last weekend and he missed the opportunity to show off to his young daughter.

*Robert Smith reading a rather obscure detective novel from the late 1960’s when he mispronounces the word “priceless” as “priss-a-liss” in his head, thankful that he is reading and had not said that out loud to anyone.

*Robert Smith standing in the aisle at his local hardware store, intently weighing the costs and benefits of converting his water heater to run on solar power, when a stock person walks past asking if he may be able to help, prompting Robert Smith to quickly and shyly tell him that no, he is just looking.

*Robert Smith visiting a relative’s farm- to catch up with a distant side of the family- when he accidentally knocks over the container for all of the chicken feed; he tries to nonchalantly clean up the mess, but in fact just makes it worse by burying it deeper into the sand in the chickens’ pen.

*Robert Smith walking home from his preferred video rental store, directly across from the local University, when some students playing frisbee golf in the field on the opposite side of the street recognize him and tell him to “catch” as they hurl the frisbee at him. Wanting to look “cool”, he girlishly jumps to catch the frisbee, just as it sharply changes direction with the wind, leaving him empty-handed and looking foolish; this is met with a fair amount of laughter from the students, leading Robert Smith to pick up the frisbee and throw it further down the street in a fit of spite.

*Robert Smith getting frustrated with the woman in front of him in the express line at the grocery store, because he counts 14 items when the sign clearly explains that you may only have 10 items. He lets out an exasperated sigh, as he was trying to make it home in time for the new America’s Funniest Pets and People episode, when the woman makes a half-turn with her body and angrily glares at him as the cashier places her 2nd cantaloupe into her cart and she removes her checkbook from her purse.

* Enjoying an unseasonably warm April day, Robert Smith is stopped at a red light with his windows down, drumming along on the steering wheel to Duran Duran’s “Rio.” He glances to his left, and in the mirror sees a car full of young, attractive female goths pulling up next to him. In an effort to save his credibility, he lunges towards the radio. As they come to a stop next to him, he manages to change the station, but the tuner randomly lands on the local R&B station, which is playing Ginuwine’s “Pony.”

* Robert Smith and his wife settle down on the couch to watch House. Robert is excited because he has just purchased a 52-inch HDTV. The episode starts and is almost immediately interrupted by the local news station talking about a severe storm three counties over. As the show shrinks to half of the original size, his wife sarcastically remarks, “I’m glad we paid extra for the bigger screen!” He silently resents her.

* Robert Smith is waiting in line at the deli counter in the supermarket. The woman in front of him mispronounces “hummus,” making it rhyme with “doom us.” The clerk behind the counter corrects her, which leads to an awkward silence. Robert cringes.

* Robert Smith decides to treat his family to a vacation. After a few weeks of thinking, they decide on a cruise to Mexico. The big day arrives, and the family checks their luggage, hands over their passports, and boards the ship. Sipping a Pina Colada as the ship pulls away from the port, Robert wonders if he remembered to mail the water bill.

*Robert Smith testing the acidity of his swimming pool water because he noticed a heavy chlorine smell last night while doing his daily laps.

*Robert Smith trying to figure out why his inkjet printer keeps displaying a paper jam error- when there clearly is no paper jam- before resigning himself to saving his memoirs onto a USB drive and printing a first draft at his local Kinko’s.

*Robert Smith humming the melody to what he plans to be the first single from the next Cure album, while having a nagging feeling that he’d heard the first bar somewhere before, possibly on the commercial for the supermarket’s grand opening sale last week.

*Robert Smith scouring the neighborhood for his lost puppy in his pajama bottoms, as he realized the dog was missing at 6:43 am. Upon returning home unsuccessfully, he finds that the silly dog had been hiding in the ironing pile the whole time, letting out a quick but noticeable smile.

*Robert Smith thinking about how best to naturally treat the hangnail bothering his left pinky toe, since he can’t find his toe nail clippers that he specifically bought at the drug store the last time this happened!

*Robert Smith trying to explain the complexities of string theory (which he, realistically, doesn’t fully understand) to his mother in an attempt to convince her that he really had retained some information from his stab at a Physics degree many years ago, though he had never completed his exit exams.

Robert Smith Doing Things

* Robert Smith glances at CNBC and sees that the Dow Jones is briefly above 8,000. He plays a few bars of “Shiny Happy People” on his guitar before stopping, embarrased. He grabs his laptop and attempts to check his portfolio…someone has changed the password to his Google account. He sighs.

* Robert Smith, attempting to fill up his automobile, stops at a suburban gas station. He inserts his credit card and the screen reads “see cashier.” He briefly considers driving to a different gas station, but eventually he accepts his fate and slowly walks inside, dreading the forthcoming interaction.

Robert Smith Doing Things

*Robert Smith, thinking he’s alone in his hotel room, let’s out a laugh at a “Mind of Mencia” sketch he has remembered from either the first or second season of the show; unbeknownst to him, his tour manager is using the restroom and, from the other side of the door asks “What’s so funny?”, to which he replies “Oh…nothing” in order to maintain his image.

*Robert Smith getting visibly upset over his borrowed, 3rd generation VHS tape dub of Summer Slam 8 being damaged to the point of unwatchable right at the part where Razor Ramon gives IRS the Razor’s Edge.

*Robert Smith trying on belts at the local outlet store; but since he is an in-between size, none of the belts really fit properly, and the ones he likes, that are just the right shade of black, seem to be out of stock, forcing him to weigh the consequences of either having excess material protrude passed the buckle or the possibility of his pants falling down.

Robert Smith Doing Things

• Robert Smith attempting to order off-menu at the Chinese restaurant, before realizing that it is a family-style buffet.
• Robert Smith forgetting to tip the valet at the local theater, then driving back to pay the gentleman only to realize he left his billfold in his other pants.
• Robert Smith accompanying a close friend to a local gun range, where he becomes upset that there is a strict “No Exploding Targets” policy in effect.
• Robert Smith timidly asking to borrow a lighter from his neighbor who is hosting a barbeque in the side yard; his neighbor then extends the lighter, as to light his cigarette, before Robert Smith stops him by holding out a mulberry scented Yankee Candle.
• Robert Smith flipping channels on television when he briefly stops to watch the Outdoors Channel, thinking that the special on evening deer hunting is a Cure video that didn’t make the rotation on MTV circa 1987.
• Robert Smith mentoring a high school student who is in grave danger of not graduating by teaching him how to use Russian peasant mathematics to solve simple multiplication tables.
• Robert Smith arguing with a bank teller over an overdraft fee, stating that there is no chance he would have “floated a bad check” had he known his wife had purchased a reasonably expensive dalmatian as a surprise for her nephew at the exact moment he was purchasing a new dinette set as a surprise for her birthday.
• Robert Smith trying a Netty pot that was recommended by an acquaintance as a last resort before visiting his Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist, who last time told him that he should begin wearing earplugs in the shower, which he had ignored and will surely be scolded about.
• Robert Smith attempting to justify a string of crudely constructed and overly explicit web searches to a computer repair man who had not previously questioned his Internet behavior, as he was merely replacing a faulty modem at the expense of the cable company.

Oh yeah

This blog is now called Robert Smith Doing Things. It’s about imagining Robert Smith doing different things.