I Can't Have Nice Knees

The "spontaneous spillage" thing reminds me that I am also preposterously hard on my BODY. I always have a new bruise or rent in my flesh; usually I don't even remember where it came from. Once in college, my roommate and I read a time management essay that said "Just imagine if you were as bad at estimating space as most people are at estimating time; you'd constantly be running into the corners of things!" and we both went "Um, YEAH..."

CDs: nuts

I lost my book of CDS when I left my car unlocked while I was at work (luckily, the skates and pads I had in the trunk remained unstolen, probably because they reek). Now I have about 6 CDs, and most of them are scratched. That's why nothing but Depeche Mode played in my car for about the last 2 weeks. I don't even like Depeche Mode that much.

In which I ruin things with wine.

The thing is, I am a giant clutz. This is one of the major reasons I can't have nice things, but certainly not the only reason. Today, though, I'm here to tell a (really short) story to show that I'm absurdly clumsy.

I've been all kinds of awkward ever since I can remember, which is more than thirty years, and I've ruined possessions in spectacular ways simply by being a clutz. This includes cars, walls, computers, quite a few screen doors, and legions of kitchen implements.

I may have surpassed myself this past Friday night.

My husband and I are sitting on our couch, having some wine and watching science fiction television shows, as we do most Friday evenings. I wish I could claim I was drunk, but it was my first glass. One second I'm sitting there holding a glass, and the next instant my hand jerks and the glass moves a little too quickly to contain the liquid, which is of course red wine. To the untrained eye, it appeared as if I suddenly decided to throw my drink on myself.

Red wine, all over my clothing, and most importantly our couch. Not a basement couch, or an old couch we've stuck in a guest room. Our main couch. It is getting a bit old, and we've been thinking of replacing it, but not right away.

I wasn't jostled, the TV show wasn't at a scary suspenseful Surprise! bit, and I wasn't seized by a sudden impulse to ruin the furniture. I just randomly and completely inexplicably threw red wine all over myself and a couch.

To sum up, I can't have nice things, and our replacement furniture should probably be vinyl, or covered in plastic.

Cell phone blues

So J, my husband, has had a cellphone since before the Kidlet was born -- after I went and got him one. I've always gotten insurance on his cellphones because he is hard on things.
So far, he's never needed a replacement or even a repair.

Then he realizes last week that he's lost it. "It's okay!" I say. "Two years is up on it, so you can definitely upgrade!" But we never get around to actually going the mile to the store to get his replacement.

And then he finds it on the backporch when he goes to mow the lawn. There it is, a little damp from all the rain last week. And yet? Works perfectly once he's charged it.
It's like just having the insurance is guaranteeing he never loses or breaks it!

Of course, there's no insurance on mine, because I'm careful. And of course, this spring, my cellphone went belly up -- the screen just went black and no, I hadn't dropped it or anything. So I had to fork out some cash to replace it.
I think the Fates conspire against me.

This was my favorite t-shirt

This was absolutely the best t-shirt. I had it in a soft 3/4 length sleeve gray style which is apparently no longer available. I spilled a spot of oil on it and somehow did not notice before washing and drying it. Fellow ICHNTers, if you get any food based stain on fabric, I have a hint for you: Palmolive gets almost everything to look perfect again if you just immediately scrub at the stain with a dot of it plus a bit of water, maybe with a clean sponge or washcloth. But what does not work AT ALL is washing and drying the stupid fucking oil stain so that it's permanently a part of your best Squirrel Playing The Drums t-shirt.

It was from here.

all class...

Since I’ve temporarily given up caffeine and thus my multi-daily americano with special wobbly lid, my can’t-having of nice things has dropped to near undetectable levels.

I have, however, partially replaced this with noticing several hours into my work day that I’ve got a large toothpaste stain somewhere screamingly obvious. Had the coffee stains been serendipitously covering this?

Also, earlier this week, as I was changing out of my work clothes while simultaneously reeeally craving cheese on toast…let’s just say that the nice thing I couldn’t have was a lightly scorched nipple.

Earbuds

Because I commute by train/bus/subway for four hours a day (on average), my iPod is very important to me and I take very good care not only to keep it nice but also to keep everything on it organized to an annoying degree. Unfortunately, the headphones always cause problems for me.

What I've noticed is that nice earbuds* come with YARDS of audio cord and I always manage to get that cord caught on anything and everything in my bag: books, notebooks, my Treo, pens, the iPod itself, zippers, whatever. So there's generally a great deal of yanking when I go to pull the iPod and headphones out of my bag and one or both of the earpieces always manages to get separated from the cord. I have probably gone through half a dozen sets in two years.

* I love earbuds. Can't wear anything else. 1) Speaker style headphones don't insulate the music from people around you, and 2) they're just too damn loosey-goosey and I like how snug and secure earbuds are.