Conditional: Tense

Long ago, in a land far, far away lived a girl who liked to play games. They were private games that she played alone, in the weird, wild, wonderful landscapes of her mind.

One of the games she liked to play was deal-making. "If you finish this, then you can do that". "You can have your fun after the washing up". It was a game for getting things done. She didn't trust herself to get anything done at all without the games.

Life for the girl became a series of Pavlovian dog-munchies.

The way to get the really hard things done was to hold back something very desirable. "You can't do that until you've done this". The girl thought she was lazy, couldn't be relied upon to cross stuff off the list under her own steam. So she withheld what she loved, to keep her moving.

Boxed were ticked and time tocked by. Sad and missing her favourite pastime, she cheated a little at the game and sneaked it in under the wire. "If I do it like this, it won't count".

Now she is applying her ingenuity to finding a new deal that starts with the pastime, and ends with a different reward. Clunk, clunk, clunk go the cogs of her conditional deal-making machine.

She is running out of excuses.