Don Camillo’s Dilemma

I AM perpetually irritated by the virtue of the punctilious penpushers who have penetrated the most unsuspected places and lie in ambush wherever I go. They favour me with a bored and pitying glance when I rush in at the last minute before the dead-line with my typewritten pages and India-ink drawings.
“Poor Guareschi! Just under the rope, as usual!” they are obviously thinking.
At such times I am full of coffee, nicotine, bicarbonate of soda, and fatigue. My clothes are sticking to me because I haven’t taken them off for three days; I have dirty hands and stubble on my chin. My mouth is furry and my head, stomach, heart, and liver are all aching. A lock of unkempt hair is hanging down over my nose and black dots dance before my eyes.
“Why do you always wait until the very last minute?” they ask me. “Why don’t you do your work little by little, while there is still plenty of time?”
But if I had paid attention to the punctilious penpushers, I wouldn’t have got even as far as I am today.