Sometimes I wonder if the room suddenly started filling up with water, whether we would all sit here and drown out of apathy and indecision,” I said.

Josh and Brenton stared at me from their respective desks. Josh was reading a book. Brenton was playing some computer game involving bananas. I was sitting on their one-armed, black leather couch.

It was Monday evening, and we were in their room trying to decide where we were going to go eat. It wasn’t going well.

“This room is a vortex of indecision today,” Josh announced. “It’s like…” His voice trailed off as his face slowly turned away from mine to gaze vacantly at the carpet in a corner of the room.

After several seconds I interrupted his silent meditation to ask, “Are you trying to demonstrate indecision and apathy, or what? You just stopped talking in the middle of a sentence and started staring at the floor.”

“I did?” he asked. This type of thing is very typical of my college group of friends. Whatever the reason (whether it be due to genetics, a mysterious illness or the results of alien experiments), we seem to lack the will or the endurance to carry out the long, rigorous process that is decision making.

If we had a motto, it would quite possibly be the quote that headlines this column. My roommate read “Give me indecision…” in an e-mail forward last year, and it really rang true. When it comes to making decisions swiftly, we are, for the most part, utterly incapable.

Monday had been particularly frustrating. All day a group of us had been trying to do two basic things: watch our Hy-Vee movie rental, “Reality Bites,” and go out to eat. This seemingly simple task had proven quite difficult since it required the coordination of various people’s schedules. Certain members of the group had taken to disappearing all throughout the day, and at no given time were the rest of us able to decide to continue our plan without the others.

I had been sitting around most of the afternoon waiting for something to happen, for someone to make a decision. My patience was waning. So, around 6 p.m., I decided to find Josh and Brenton, the only others around, and make something happen.

When I had first entered their room, Josh had shouted, “Let’s go eat!” But since I’d caught him staring at the floor, his resolve had begun to waver. “We don’t have to go eat now, if you don’t want to,” he told me.

“We’re going to eat now, so decide where you want to go.” We were so close to a decision now that I wasn’t about to let it get away from us.

“I don’t know. Brenton? Where do you want to go?” Passing the buck. Typical tactic.

“I don’t know. You decide.” Empowerment of others. Classic dodge.

“I’m not even hungry. I don’t care where we go. Let’s just go.,” I said, hitting the ball back into their court where it belonged. “I decided that we were going. You guys have to decide where we’re going.”

“I can’t really afford it, but I would like to go somewhere with real food,” Josh said. “Let’s have Chinese.”

“No,” Brenton said from behind his computer. “I don’t like Chinese.”

“That’s not a good enough reason,” I informed him. “All objections must be submitted in written form and be at least two pages in length.” This rule exists to deter us from shooting down possible decisions for silly reasons.

“Let’s have Mexican,” Josh offered. Another good idea, but…

The tiring debate continued.

We ended up going to Boston Market (which, you may’ve noticed, doesn’t serve either Chinese or Mexican cuisine). By the time we got back, the rest of our group had resurfaced and, at long last, we got to watch the movie around 9 p.m. Afterward, as the film was rewinding, we all milled about the den talking and such. A few of us climbed onto our university-issue den chairs and stood on the arms (an act which is undoubtedly against some regulation, and I am not condoning it in any way).

“Why are you guys standing on the chairs?” some floor-dweller asked.

“So we can seize the day,” came the flip answer.

I hope this comment proves to be prophetic. Despite our frequent lack of motivation, we occasionally rouse ourselves to actually form an opinion about something and make a decision based on it.

For instance, we have already selected the name of our college rock band. We haven’t written any songs, decided what kind of music we want to sing or even technically formed our band. But we plan to call ourselves “Lumpy Pillow” (after some futon furnishings I made in 8th grade Home Ec).

Now, you might say that something like this is irrelevant and not worth bothering with. If you said that, I’d probably agree with you. But it’s a start, and what I’m interested in here is growth potential.

Yesterday we chose a name for our band. Today maybe we can watch a movie or go to a restaurant without a seven-hour ordeal. Tomorrow — who knows?

Call it a twelve-step program. Call it tough love. Call it what you will. At least it’s a start, and whatever you call it, I am convinced that someday, if we ever get around to it, we will truly “seize the day.”

Probably, I think. But, then again, maybe not.

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Juli Hisel is an undeclared sophomore from Richland.