Klutzy Incidents—January 2009

January 1—New Year, Same Old Clumsiness

I worked at the calendar kiosk today. It is probably to be expected that my sleepiness from working late last night resulted in many dropped calendars. I avoided any register disasters, but that shan't last.

January 2—In the absence of anything interesting . . .

I'm writing this much later than January second. I haven't had any particularly clumsy incidents of late, so rather than post more three-sentence entries saying little more than "I knocked over calendars at work today," I've decided to retroactively update with a series of stories about prior episodes, beginning with the classic that cemented my reputation as a klutz.

I was fourteen, and my dad and I were doing Christmas shopping for my aunt. We went to Pier 1 Imports, and I milled around in the background, waiting impatiently. I spied a Papasan chair and promptly sat down in it. I was just getting comfortable when my dad saw me and said, "Look out!" I twisted around to see what I was supposed to be looking out for, and in the process of turning around, the back of the chair tilted up . . . and into the floor-to-ceiling stack of empty Papasan chair frames. They leaned like the Tower of Pisa, hung in space for a terrifying fraction of a second, and then collapsed, clattering across floor, knocking down series of boxes like so many dominoes as they went. Half the inventory of the store was . . . well, not demolished, but certainly no longer neatly stacked. Mortified, I leaped to my feet and nearly knocked over a large case of glassware. It rattled ominously but, mercifully, settled. I wish I had a photograph of the expensive grimace on my dad's face in that instant. I gasped my apologies but did not find out if I'd actually caused any real damage, for my dad abruptly concluded his shopping at that second.

January 3—Something Smells Fishy

The following story is not exactly a klutzy incident, but it is a portrayal of social embarrassment (mine, of my own making), which I feel rather falls into the same category.

In preparing the notes for today's entry, I wrote simply "the fish." I kept coming back to it and thinking, "What fish? Oh God, the fish." So, yeah. This one is kind of a doozy.

I used to live on a sailboat. Even before that, when my parents were still married, we always had sailing or fishing equipment around. So when my dad and I moved to a new house, not in a particularly organized fashion, an old tackle box somehow ended up in the back of my closet. It took me some years to discover it buried beneath other boxes and books. Inevitably, though, I was cleaning out my closet one day and found this dusty, grayish-green box. I popped it open and was welcomed with a nearly tangible wave of foul malodor. The rancid stench closed up my throat and brought tears to my eyes.

Always one to do the logical thing, I dragged the box into the middle of my bedroom floor and emptied its contents onto the carpet.

I sifted through the hooks and buoys and their various accoutrements. Inevitably, I happened across the source of the stench: the rubber bait.

Thank God it was only rubber. If it were real, I would have been able to smell it from the hall while it was still in the box.

I examined the various lures with a kind of morbid fascination. Some were black, some blue, some red, some yellow, some multicolored, some even had glitter. They came in all shapes and sizes. Some had small fins and tails, others were worms, others more resembled tadpoles. All were smelly and suspiciously sticky. Naturally, I decided to test the stickiness by flicking them up toward the ceiling. They stuck for a bit before falling . . . usually. A couple I never did get down.

Somewhat inevitably, one of the lures ended up in my backpack. I received a shock one day when I pulled my history textbook out of my bag and discovered a black worm stuck to it. I shrugged, peeled it off, and tossed it into my locker.

Later that day, I opened my locker to retrieve my history textbook. I had not noticed earlier that I'd set my book right on top of the worm, and it was thusly stuck to the bottom of the book. As I pulled the book out of the locker, the lure scraped against the locker, fell off, and stuck to the face of the—of course—cute guy who had the locker underneath mine.

He was in such a hurry that I don't think he noticed from whence the rubber demon came, but I was highly suspicious when he switched lockers days later.

January 4—I used to have a lot of cardboard boxes lying around.

Today I sent Dom his blanket. It did not go smoothly. First I had to find something to put the blanket in aside from the carton in which I would be mailing it. I wanted a wrapping for it, plus an extra layer of protection against the postal service's dubious care in shipping. I poked around the house and eventually dug a large Christmas gift bag out of my dad's closet. He'd been saving it ever since I originally gave it to him (with some shirts in it or something) a few years ago; it has three Santa faces complete with fluffy beards on the side of it. I folded up the blanket as small as I could and wedged it in there. The sides of the bag bulged, and the top of the blanket was hanging out of the top. I took some Christmas tissue paper and stuffed it over the top of the blanket and into the sides of the bag. I tore at least one piece, which I unsuccessfully attempted to hide by folding it.

Then I went to the post office, tape gun and Sharpie in hand, and located a box in which to place the now-grotesque Santa bag. I chose a box that was not quite large enough and wedged the bag into it. I stuffed the accompanying card into the side and forced the box closed, straddling it as I fought with the tape gun in the middle of the post office. People stared. I ignored them and paid for the box and postage and left, only to wheel around and run back, realizing I'd forgotten to write "OPEN WITH CARE" on the outside of the box. I hope it arrives in one piece, and not one big flat piece.

January 5—Once again, a time when a spare cardboard box would have come in handy.

This is another retroactive update, a story about some previous mishap used as filler material until I get back into form and start tripping over things and smashing things regularly once more.

A couple of weeks after I moved back into my dad's from Kirston's house, we decided to rearrange some furniture. I had moved the dining table out of the living room and into the disused dining room, smashing a plate cover off a wall outlet in the process, but otherwise without incident.

With the more available space in the living room, we could now fit the two bookcases that housed all of our movies in there, as opposed to in an upstairs room where they were before. My dad moved all the movies off of one bookcase and into a few empty boxes. We carried the bookcase downstairs, fumbling a bit as we turned around the landing. We placed the bookcase on the left side of the TV and ascended the stairs once more to work on the other bookcase. My dad, much less patiently than before, swept the first three shelves' contents into boxes. The last two shelves he decided not to bother with, over my protests of impending catastrophe. We lifted the two-fifths full bookcase and carried it down the stairs. Or rather, we carried it down the stairs until we tried to turn the corner of the landing, whereupon the bottom two shelves violently spat out their contents. Naturally, one corner of the bookcase slipped off the step it was on (and yes, it was a corner I was holding) and smashed a couple of the movie boxes, though the tapes themselves seemed to be fine.

"Uh huh," my dad said over my hysterical laughter. We lifted the case again, dancing around the spilled VHS tapes, and maneuvered the bookcase into position opposite the other one. Then I dusted off the cases and, without further incident, stocked them with DVDs and VHS tapes plus a few books.

January 6—I will never be one of those people who type in all caps.

I had of course many, many, klutzy incidents when I was going to UT. They did not all involve tripping over things. Sometimes I had problems with the computers in the campus libraries, as exemplified in the following excerpt from an extremely frustrated e-mail:

. . . I swear to God, no matter what I did, for several moments there, the Caps lock simply would NOT work. And I was like, "Good God, I am fucking PATHETIC; I overtaxed a perfectly good Caps lock key and rendered it utterly useless in under three minutes; trust ME to do something like THAT." That WOULD happen to me. Seriously, everywhere I go in this goddam department, death and destruction follow me. Or at least destruction. No, really, it's like, my slightest glance is enough to cause even the sturdiest of electrical equipment to wither and perish in minutes flat. Machinery bristles in my presence.

*sigh* How times don't change.

January 7—Stitchless!

Today I got the stitches in my gum removed. That in itself went fine, although—predictably—I was not able to get some more sleep upon returning home as I'd planned. I got called into work early and only just had enough time to get something to eat before running out of the house and barely making it on time.

January 8—The Mummy's Hand

It's surprising, with as much cooking as I do, that I have any fingers left. Witness the following story from a couple of years ago.

I was cooking something (I don't remember what) and was looking through a drawer for a ladle. Naturally, I cut myself on a knife in the process and rushed upstairs to my bathroom to put a bandage on it. I bled profusely, copiously, sickeningly, excessively, surprisingly voluminously, etc., etc. all over my bathroom counter, windowsill, floor, toilet, toilet paper dispenser, bath mat, and laundry hamper before I finally managed to get it covered. This was because it is somewhat difficult to hold a disturbingly-heomphiliacally-bleeding hand still over the sink while standing at an impossibly awkward angle. The awkward angle, in turn, was due to searching for the iodine with my left hand, and the first aid stuff was on the right hand side of the cabinet. I couldn't change positions because the wall in my doll house-sized bathroom was in the way. Oh, and it also took a hand towel and two wash cloths to mop up.

'At last!' I thought as I stuck the bandage onto my finger and headed downstairs. Less than one minute later, while still searching (albeit more carefully) for the ladle, I saw that I had (perhaps rather predictably, but I always underestimate the amount of blood in my body) bled through the bandage. I rushed back upstairs to put on an extra bandage. I returned downstairs and re-resumed the ladle hunt, only to discover quickly that I had bled through the extra bandage as well. I swore and stampeded up the stairs. I ripped off both bandages, threw them away, and held my still-hemophiliacally-dribbling finger over the sink while I fished out my first aid kit again. This time, I gave up on bandages and wrapped a bunch of gauze around the troublesome finger and held it all in place with an inexpertly-wrapped-because-I'm-not-left-handed-and-had-to-use-my-left-hand-to-do-it-duh wad of paper tape. This time, I left the first aid kit out and open, ready for the next inevitable bleed-through. And thusly I spent the rest of the day looking like I had a mummy attached to my hand.

January 9—"Did you flip off the wrong person?" "No, a trash can fell on it." " . . . "

Similar to yesterday's story, only a few months before, I had my right middle finger bound up in gauze, albeit not quite for the same reason. That time it was because a trash can fell on it. I mean not like off the roof or anything; I was hauling the trash can up from the end of the driveway, and a sudden gust of wind blew it over, and before I had time to move out of the way properly, it had knocked me over. I managed not to get completely flattened; my left knee and right hand broke my fall. I bruised the shit out of my knee—the knot that formed was literally the size of my kneecap and black and blue—and the whole left half of my right middle fingernail turned completely black and hurt like you would not believe. I had to wrap gauze around it and leave it that way for about a week to keep from accidentally bumping it into anything and screaming in agony (a mistake I made not more than once, I can tell you). It took six weeks to grow back properly.

January 10—Maybe this is how Carmen Miranda got the idea.

So tonight we went to HEB. Not two minutes into the trip, I had my klutzy incident. I was in the produce section and looking at pears or something—instead of where I was going—and bumped my head on one of those hanging scales for weighing fruit. My dad saw the whole thing and said, "How about that?"

I always kind of wanted a kitchen scale. I'm not so sure if I do now.

January 11—The Day the Bed Fell

In case anyone was wondering, yes, clumsiness does rather run in my family. My dad will deny this. Let this story be all the proof I will ever need.

Some years ago, my dad went to my grandfather's place in the Hill Country to help him move some furniture. Specifically, my grandfather needed help moving a king sized bed out of an upstairs bedroom. Rather than carry the whole thing down the stairs and out the front door, my dad devised a plan to rig a pulley so they could heave the bed out the patio door, over the balcony, and onto the bed of the truck below. They decided to begin with the headboard and rigged it up.

All went well until the instant my dad touched his hands to the rope. Then, in approximately one one-thousandth of a second, the headboard sprang up, rocketed across the room, smashed the patio door into a mountain of shards, and completely missed the truck below.

My dad later said it seemed to happen in slow motion, but it simultaneously flashed past and all he could do was stare. I know that feeling quite well . . .

January 12—My Dad's New Umbrella

I have today another story about my dad's clumsiness, though I suppose this one wasn't really his fault. It has nevertheless brought me a great deal of enjoyment.

He had just purchased a new umbrella, one of those automatic ones where you press the button and it flies open. He was proudly showing it off to some coworkers, and he pressed the button, and the handle stayed in his hand, and the rest of it shot several feet across the room. My dad stood there in shock while his coworkers laughed hysterically.

I'm almost jealous, actually.

January 13—My Own Umbrellas

Like my dad, I also have bad luck with umbrellas. I have demolished approximately ten in the last decade.

I had one with a cane handle that fell apart piece by piece, starting with the handle and working its way up. It molted during Tech Theatre one day, at which point I gave up and tossed it in the trash on my way out.

I lost a couple, of course, and I had another that rusted. I had two that blew inside out beyond repair, and one or two where the caps that held the fabric to the metal spokes wouldn't stay put and I eventually gave up.

Most awesomely, however, was the umbrella that I wrecked my senior year of high school. During lunch one day, some kid threatened to demolish the small stuffed Pink Panther I had attached to my backpack. I seized my umbrella, leaped up, and chased him across the courtyard, down the sidewalk, to the parking lot, and off the campus, beating him over the head with my umbrella the whole time.

The umbrella was of course destroyed, but it was well worth having my beloved Pink Panther left alone.

January 14—Why I No Longer Wear a Watch

Akin to yesterday's tale of ruined umbrellas, I have also suffered many mishaps involving watches. This is why I no longer wear a watch.

As a child, I broke a watch playing a game with my dad. We were running around the house, I tripped over an air pocket and face planted. My wrist hit the tile floor, and when I got to my feet and checked my watch, its digital face was blank. It never could be fixed.

I had a similar accident involving a bicycle in sixth grade. I had a watch with a little cover over the face, and when I fell on my bicycle, the little cover ripped violently off.

Another watch died when I accidentally ran it through the washing machine, and another lasted quite a long time but began to wear out until I kept it held together with a safety pin. It chafed terribly on my wrist, which I ignored until the safety pin inevitably popped open and scratched my wrist, at which point I discarded the watch.

Finally, my greatest watch foible, I had a watch whose band was wearing out, and one day it fell off my wrist. I turned around to retrieve it, just in time to see it get over by a truck. I walked hesitantly back to where it had been. It was partially ground into the pavement, its face smashed. I left it where it was.

I once wrote a sonnet to one of my late watches. I don't feel like digging for it, which is probably just as well since I'm quite sure it was terrible.

January 15—The Giant Backpack

This is not exactly a klutzy incident, but I figured I'd relate the story anyway since I'm certain some clumsiness on my part contributed to it.

I had a particularly hideous backpack in tenth grade. It was huge and ugly and ultimately wore out by the end of the year. The ugliness I could have lived with, but being both ugly and oversized was not something I could handle.

A hole wore in the bottom corner of it, which I badly patched with silver duct tape. The hole wore larger, which led to more patching. Finally, on the last day of school, I took the backpack home and drop kicked it across the room into the trash.

My next backpack was a neat little affair of navy blue. Well, by "neat" I mean "covered with safety pins," but that was for form, not function.

January 16—Why I will never lend an umbrella to someone who is already wet.

My first day of tenth grade was a memorable one. It was pouring rain as I got on the bus that afternoon, and I was almost the last person off the bus. By the time we came to my street, the steps at the door of the bus were slick from rain that had blown in as the other students deboarded.

Predictably, I slipped on the top step and bounced down the steps like a Slinky, banging my ass on each step until I landed with a dramatic splash in a predictably deep mud puddle located immediately outside the door to the bus in a moment of cinematic convenience. The bus driver gasped, and the three people remaining on the bus howled with derisive laughter, their mirth increasing when my neighbor's mom rushed outside and stooped on the curb to hand me a giant umbrella with a map of the world emblazoned across it in pink. I tried to point out that it would be utterly useless to me at that point, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. I took the umbrella into the house, irritably tossed it onto the floor to drip, took a hot shower to wash the mud off, and grumpily ate some green beans, reflecting that it would probably be a terrible year.

I was right.

January 17—I currently carry a purse without a shoulder strap.

A very short story today . . . There was this time in my seventh grade art class when I got up to retrieve supplies from across the room, and I caught my foot in the strap of purse that was on the floor, and I dragged it for several feet before noticing. Only the teacher saw, but she said my name and laughed at me, so then other people looked. *sigh*

January 18—Frost/Nixon

This evening I went to see Frost/Nixon. I brought a Boost with me. (Boost is a bottled nutrient drink; I've been trying to gain weight lately.) Halfway through the movie, I decided to drink it and pulled it out of my purse and tried to open it as quietly as I could. Finally, after a minute or so of what I thought was a quiet struggle (albeit with increasing violence) to pull the metal tab off the top, the guy I was with wordlessly reached over and pulled it out of my hands and pulled the tab off for me and handed it back, all without so much as a glance at it or me. I collapsed in silent laughter and was unable to drink my Boost for some minutes.

January 19—The Comb

Tonight I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke up, I stood up and, upon glancing down, saw a number of odd-shaped bits of plastic on the couch cushion. I was baffled for a second before remembering with horror that I had fallen asleep with a comb in my back pocket. I gingerly reached into my pocket and pulled out the remains of my comb, which now resembled something only useful to a bald man. It took some time clean up, but at least I learned to empty my pockets before lying on the couch again.

January 20—Inauguration Day!

Today I sat at home to watch Obama's inauguration (!). While I watched, I sewed the sleeves onto the sweater I'd knitted with his logo on the front of it. I fucked each one up and had to rip it out several times to redo it, and then I messed up the neckline and had to rip out and redo it several times as well. But at least I finally finished it and now have a totally badass sweater to wear proudly every single day until it warms up.

January 21—The Fire Alarm

I have another story about my dad to relate.

My dad works at Lowe's, so he often brings home stories of varying acts of idiocy by customers and coworkers.

Many moons ago, they had some trouble with the fire alarm; all day long, the fire alarm would go off several times an hour. It would stop immediately, but still, it was very loud and aggravating. Near the end of the day, my dad stood by the entrance door and watched in annoyance as some customer who couldn't work out the difference between "entrance" and "exit" tried to force the entrance doors open by shoving on them. The exact second his hands touched the door, the fire alarm went off again. The customer jumped a mile and looked guiltily over his shoulder, looking even guiltier when he saw my dad standing there watching him. My dad miraculously never cracked a smirk; he just held up his finger warningly. The customer very sheepishly slunk over to the exit door and got the hell out.

January 22—The Burglar Alarm

Today's story is related to yesterday's; it's another story my dad brought home from Lowe's, about the burglar alarm this time.

The door in the back of the store has a bar across it that you push to open it, and it hadn't been working properly for a while, meaning it wouldn't lock. So, to keep it locked at night, they just used a forklift to pile a bunch of boxes in front of it. But one day, one of the employees somehow managed to break the bar off of the door, and the whole mess crashed to the floor. The burglar alarm blared away, literally painfully loudly, for God only knows how long as everyone tried desperately to stop it. Nothing worked, and they had to break it in the end. I'm not sure if they ever actually repaired it. If they did, I'd assume it was with something sturdier.

January 23—The Chalk Tray

Yesterday's story reminds me of something that happened when I was a junior in high school. I was in Algebra II, in Mrs. Jenkins' class. There were these three guys in that class who sat together—Gene Tenney, Brandon Crump, and Clint something (whose last name I don't think I ever knew). So these three guys sat together in Mrs. Jenkins' class in the corner in the back. There was this unused chalkboard that ran along that side of the room, and Clint was always leaning against the chalk tray. Inevitably, one day, Clint finally strained it too much, and the chalk tray broke and crashed—quite loudly—to the floor. Gene tried to help Clint fix it, and they failed and ended up just leaving it on the floor. Meanwhile, the class watched in hysterical laughter, even Mrs. Jenkins, almost. She didn't say a word; she just shook her head, tried not to laugh, and kept passing papers back.

January 24—This incident is probably on the record as the official reason why I can't get an office job.

I once had a job interview with the UT Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for a position as A/V technician. I was looking forward to potentially working in a field related to my degree, not to mention spending every day in a building full of smart guys. Alas, on some subconscious level, I am fundamentally unable to handle such a prospect.

I thought the interview went reasonably well—or at least as reasonably well as might be expected for yours truly—yours sweaty-palmed, dry-throated, shifty-eyed, fidgeting, and incoherently-blathering truly, that is. From the moment my alarm clock chose to go off at six forty-five instead of eight o'clock, I suspected that my day was destined not to go as I had planned. I staggered out of bed and made myself some coffee, fearing that if I tried to snatch another hour's sleep, I'd oversleep and miss my interview. I turned on my computer, figuring I may as well take advantage of the time to do some last-minute revision of the Department's website. After the mandatory amount of dawdling, reading web comics, and looking up Monty Python lyrics, I finally got to work. Not that I learned anything new, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

I was wrong.

Oh, I wish I'd taken that nap.

As I was sitting there reading, I distractedly took a ruinously huge gulp of coffee, all of which went straight down my windpipe. I immediately spat out as much of it as I could, but instead of going back into the mug, it went all down the front of my nightgown, and I do mean all. Amazing how much coffee there really was. And no smart comments about me and my big mouth. So I jumped up, tore into the kitchen, dropped the now-empty mug in the sink, and tried unsuccessfully not to gag. At least I didn't hurl my breakfast, as I feared I would. I decided that it was time to get dressed, so I removed my coffee-soaked nightgown, tossed it in the wash, and put on the skirt and blouse I planned to wear to my interview.

I then realized that the blouse had an irritating tag on an inside seam, and I impatiently ripped it out, inadvertently ripping a small hole in the seam in the process. I swore incoherently, reflected that it was a good thing that I still had plenty of time before I had to leave, and I retrieved my sewing kit to mend the shirt. I repaired the hole while sitting in front of my computer in my bra and slip and the top buttons on my skirt unbuttoned, causing my skirt to uncomfortably slide down my ass, but I couldn't be bothered with taking the time to button them properly because they were a bit of a hassle and I'd only be undoing them immediately anyway to put the shirt on. At length, I fixed the hole and finished dressing myself—and before anyone sarcastically snipes that oh, I am capable of dressing myself—uh, no, apparently, I'm not. Somewhere in the process of putting my stockings on, I somehow managed to cut my thumb open. I blinked confusedly at the drops of blood, thought, 'Well, I've drawn my own blood now; I doubt my day will get any worse.' But . . . you know.

So I went to my interview, which seemed to go well aside from aforementioned freaked-out-ed-ness, and also ignoring my almost getting pulled over by a UT cop because I couldn't figure out how to get out of the damn parking garage that was all under construction and I ended up driving between some posts and over a curb and some other shit where, judging by the number of bicycles and traffic signs and whatnot, cars were totally not meant to go, but the cop was too busy ticketing someone's incorrectly registered bicycle to bother with mere trifles like crazy women drivers catapulting over the sidewalks with the windows rolled down through which are issuing highly audible "FUCK!!!"s.

Ah, I'd forgotten the carefully prioritized lives of the UT police. Remember, you can't spell "stupid" without UTPD.

I returned home to wait impatiently for the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry to get back to me, meaning I manically checked my e-mail, even my fuzzknot account that I knew perfectly well they didn't have, just in case.

They did not give me the job.

January 25—The Shroom Shredder

My story of my incident with the scale in the produce section of the HEB a while back reminds me of another grocery store episode.

A couple of years ago, I was at the store with my dad, and I was cavorting around and not paying attention to what I was doing, and I somehow managed to slam my fist into a carton of mushrooms on the top of the cart. For a flicker of a second, I stood petrified, praying that my hand hadn't landed in what I'd thought it had. It had. In mortal terror, I glanced down for the briefest of seconds. I instantly squeezed my eyes shut and jerked my neck in the opposite direction, my mouth open in a silent cry of horror. I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed—luckily, no one had—and carefully removed my hand from what was left of the mushrooms, covertly wiping it on my skirt. The mushrooms were not merely . . . "upset"; they had been crushed, mutilated, ground into a pulp. Without even meaning to, I'd really smashed the hell out of them. The Fungus God was probably weeping and plotting to give me Athlete's Foot by way of revenge, but that thought didn't occur to me at the time. I was too busy thinking of perhaps replacing the now-ruined carton of mushrooms with a fresh one, but that would have meant trekking halfway across the store with the flattened fungi, and I'd probably collect a lot of funny looks along the way, not to mention invoking the ire of sundry HEB employees.

Not liking the prospect of such minor embarrassment, I opted to leave the devastated mushrooms in the cart. After all, I reasoned (incredibly illogically, as I later discovered), it was probably only the ones on the top that were totally destroyed, and even at that, it wouldn't really matter once they'd been cooked. I strategically placed a bag full of parsley on top of the demolished mushrooms so my dad—not to mention random passersby—wouldn't notice and ask any awkward questions. It didn't occur to me that no one would notice.

The rest of the shopping trip passed uneventfully. We then checked out—neither the checker, the bagger, nor my dad seemed to notice the decimated fungi, probably because the former two were completely zoned out and my dad was busy paying for the groceries.

January 26—And here it is!

I began the Klutzy Incidents section on November 10, 2008. As I announced on the index page, "I've started the long (long, long, long)-awaited section, Klutzy Incidents!" I recently found proof of roughly how long that waiting period was. The following is an excerpt from an e-mail dated June 12, 2004.

. . . I was thinking of starting a "Klutzy Incidents" section of my website, since I really do have some kind of (near-)catastrophic klutzy incident every day. Today I inadvertently knocked some metal over-the-door hooks off a cubicle wall at work. They bounced loudly off a door several times on the way down, and though it was probably pretty obvious who'd done it since I was the only person sitting anywhere near the door, I was too ashamed to pick them up for several long moments until the deafening silence had ended.

Yes. Two thousand four. And who knows how long before that the thought had been in my head. So, you know, sorry for the delay and all that.

January 27—Wasabi

And I'm finally back to updating every day. Yes, the retroactive updates are over.

This does mean, sadly, that the stories will be less hilarious and complex now, or at least until the next time I have nothing to relate.

Anyway. Today's incident happened at work. I went to Little Tokyo in the food court and bought a little box of California rolls. I took it with me to World Coffee and Tea and was talking to the guy at work there as I waited for my tea. I stood on my side of the counter and fidgeted, not noticing until it was far too late that my sushi box was not as sealed shut as I thought. The lid popped off as I clutched it, and the gross-looking little dab of wasabi sauce flew out of the carton and landed on the counter with a very distinct splat. I tried to continue my conversation with the World Coffee and Tea employee (who had his back to me) while searching in vain for the ball of sauce on the counter top. I almost didn't see where it had gone until I saw him giving it and me alternating suspicious stares. (At least he didn't say anything. I was just waiting for the "What is that? What did you just do?") I panicked and grabbed a fistful of napkins, jabbering about how it was just sauce, and finally retreating to a hidden corner of the food court to eat my California roll sans wasabi in deep, deep shame.

January 28—Maybe I should just use a snorkel.

Today's incident was quite unglamorous and brief. I was opening a can of soup and sloshed half it over the counter. I got some on me in the process, naturally. I think I also dribbled some on the floor. It didn't take all that long to clean up, but it was quite gross nevertheless.

January 29—I suppose social grace counts, too.

Today's klutzy incident was not actually mine, nor was it a matter of physical clumsiness (more like social clumsiness), but it did have consequences for me.

I arrived at work and was told that I would be at the kiosk (as per usual). I went down to the kiosk and, after an hour and a half or so, I got sent back to the inline store. Upon arriving there, the person who'd sent me down to the kiosk took me behind the curtain (which substitutes for a proper wall at the back of the inline) and proceeded to yell at me, saying I was supposed to be at the inline the whole time. I repeatedly told her that she'd repeatedly told me to go to the kiosk (I had in fact clarified three times that I was supposed to be at the kiosk before ever heading down there), but she would not listen and continued to yell and wouldn't let me leave. Well . . . I left. She was behaving in a manner I found intimidating, not to mention highly unprofessional. She is, I might point out, severely bipolar and off her meds; this is not the first time someone has had problems with her. Anyway, it wasn't really clumsy at all, just drama, but as that is all that happened today, I didn't really have anything else to relate here. But it might well be fodder for future clumsy episodes.

January 30—I was fine until everything got better.

I spent most of today moping around the house, fretting about yesterday's incident. Then I got a phone call from work asking me to come back. ! I thought I was considered fired, but apparently it's just the opposite. The woman who was yelling at me is now in trouble, and everyone wanted to know if I were all right. I perked up considerably after that, jumped up to make a cup of tea, and promptly stubbed my toe and spilled water all over the place.

January 31—It never pays to be cheap.

I came back to work today. I went down to the kiosk without incident (since the only condition I gave for returning to work was a staunch refusal to work again with the person who'd given me so much grief the other day). Later, I was pulling the curtains out from under the cash register when I nearly ripped the shitty little metal door off its hinges, or rather, bolts. (The kiosk is constructed of remarkably cheap materials.) The top bolt was fine (I was pleased to note that my craftsmanship of a couple of months ago held), but the bottom bolt couldn't be helped since the metal of the door had actually ripped off, and therefore there was nothing to hold the bolt in place. Still, there's only a week or so left; it's not really worth fretting about now.