Bad luck? Inconvenience? Minor annoyance? Trigger for a psychotic break?
I don't know if it is a global human reaction, but, for me, few things rank up there with getting the cuffs of your long-sleeve shirt, jacket, or sweater wet, say, while washing your hands at the sink after using the loo.
You pushed your sleeves up as far as they could go, bent uncomfortably at the knees and the back to try to cheat gravity, and then mid-suds-session, without warning, a cuff springs loose and is getting drenched directly under the stream of water.
Then the cuff is cold, and it gets all stretched out. You keep oddly shaking your arm, extended at your side, as if it were the Liberty Bell, in an attempt to air-motion dry the sleeve. It really can ruin a whole day.
Well, today I had the mother of all sleeve-drenchers.
Tomorrow is trash and recycling day. The collectors start coming around right about 7am. So I usually have a choice: put the cans out Wednesday evening or stumble around at 6:30 Thursday morning to get everything out in time. I usually try to do whatever seems less disruptive to my neighbors, as my cans stay on a concrete pad in my side yard, and our houses are very close together. The depressing thing is, right now, it being winter, it's dark both at 6:30 in the morning and 6:30 in the evening. And that side of my house is pitch black. No moonlight, no streetlight, nothing.
I got home from work at a reasonable time this evening and decided to get the trash & recycling to the curb tonight. I collected everything from the house, carried it to the side yard, reached for the trash can lid - and kapow. Kablooey. Splish-Splash. Whatever sound effect you want to add. See, we've been having rain the past few days, and the temperature dropped significantly today. My trash can lid is depressed on either side of the handle and so it is the perfect rain-collecting device. Except, I couldn't see that in the darkness that was enveloping that corner of the house. So I did as anyone would do with a bag of trash in one hand - I reached for the lid the with the other hand and lifted it off. Straight up. Not sure what degree of angle I was at, but I can tell you this: I was at the perfect angle for all of the water collected in the lid to run up the inside of my coat sleeve. Not to the wrist. Not to the elbow. Half way up the upper arm. On the underside. I was wearing a long-sleeve shirt under my coat, and the shirt sleeve and coat sleeve had absorbed some water on its journey up. So now I had ice-cold fabric against some of the thinnest, sensitive, most tender skin.
Immediately I had to decide who was at fault: the garbage man for the way he placed the lid back after last collection day? My dogwalker for the direction she put the can back on the side of the house? (Yes, my dogwalker brings the cans back up every Thursday when she is here taking care of my dog. Never asked her to. Just does. Part of her services, I guess. And I tip her well.)
Thankfully it wasn't too early or late, because I'm sure my neighbors heard the string of expletives 10 feet away inside their house.
6 comments:
Argh! So much for keeping the peace!
Wet sleeves...and wet socks rank the same in my book.
And now in sweater season, I seem to have several sweaters with ties - and when I forget - sometimes the ends of the ties end up in the toilet! Argh!!!!!
Can't stand that.
Your writing is so great!
Oh hey... that was me up there.
Tammy
Wet socks DO rank up there with wet sleeves, but since living by myself I am in the habit of wiping up any spills right away, so the chance of stepping in liquid is greatly reduced. ;)
Of course you're anal about spills. I expected no different.
It's the sneaky little puddles that get ya. Like when my nephew comes in from the snow - and the clump melts, and you don't notice utnil your sock is uncomfortably soaked.
ugh
T
Okay, I forgot to comment on the ties in the toilet thing. That is just gross. I had it happen once, and now if I have ties I flip the shirt half way up my torso, making sure the ties are inside.
And I was just giving you hard time about the wet socks. I still get nabbed from the automatic ice maker / dispenser in the fridge. A wayward cube misses the glass and in the dark I don't notice. It melts fast on the floor from the heat at the bottom of the fridge. Puddles are quickly created.
I also have a dog who is an especially sloppy drinker [since she hasn't learned how to drink out a straw (HA! Boy, do I tell that story over and over.)] and since her stroke I believe she spills more on the floor than she gets to swallow. I am perpetually wiping drips in trails leading away from the water bowl, but sometimes I miss one or two.
Laughing out loud here.... I hate that you take the straw thing so seriously!!
It is funny though.
But keep in mind, I don't hang out with dogs - or other animals - and it had been years, nay decades, since I bothered to watch one eat!!!
Considering so many freaks treat them like humans - I guess my mind just made sense of the straw in cup marked for a dog - FOR A SPLIT FRICKEN SECOND!
For the record, it's about time Thes got the hang of it.
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