Time and Motion

My wife and I, we're like a well-oiled team. (She often accuses me of being well-oiled, but that's not what I'm talking about).
Here's a past example.

Someone leaves a new telephone directory by the gate. On the way back from the garage, I collect it, remove the polythene wrapper, exchange it for the old directory by the telephone, and leave that one on the hall table, ready to go out to the dustbin (they won't recycle telephone directories round here).

My partner passes, spots the directory in the hall, exchanges it for the one by the telephone, and gives the new one, which she thinks is the old one, to the children to scribble on.

After they have scribbled for some time and got bored, I happen by, and naturally demonstrate how to tear a telephone directory in half (you break the spine and start there). It's what blokes do. Then I put the pieces on the hall table again, ready to go out to the dustbin.

My wife takes them out to the dustbin.

The dustmen take them away for incineration or landfill.

A small tree, or at least a large branch, has died. Some carbon has been released. We have an out of date telephone directory. I have a sprained shoulder. And my wife says it's all my fault. See what I mean? Seamless. Not a joule of wasted effort. Teamwork like that takes years.