Rough Start

My day got off to a rough start. It almost made me wonder if anything was going to go right for me today.

First, my toiletry cabinet attacked me. It's this flimsy little cupboard hanging on the bathroom wall above the washbasin, with a divided mirror covering three hinged doors. Behind this door are a couple of shelves resting on plastic brackets that push into shallow holes in the sides of the cabinet. Now and then, one of these plastic brackets will spontaneously burst out of its hole and fly across the room, leaving the shelf unsupported so that deodorant, toothpaste, nail clippers, and the like rain down on the lower shelves, into the sink, and (if my luck holds) even into the nearby toilet bowl.

Today, I witnessed a perfectly-timed series of shelf-bracket explosions. First one bracket rattled into the sink; the moment I put it back where it belonged, the second bracket flew onto the floor next to the toilet. Somehow managing not to dump a shelfload of toiletries, I got the second bracket back into place just before the third one flew across the room, ricocheting off the bathtub. While I was coaxing it back into its proper hole, the fourth bracket jumped out and, in spite of the three that were still supporting it and my very active attempts to hold back disaster, the whole shelf took a header into the sink. I swore loudly.

I swore even more loudly a few minutes later, as I was getting ready to feed the cats. I knew that I needed to refill the sealed rubber container in which I keep each bag of cat food after I break it open. So I stood a fresh bag of cat food on top of the microwave, placed the half-empty cat-food dish next to it, turned around and bent over to pull the rubber container out of the cupboard next to the sink. At that precise moment, the bag of cat food decided to tip over, knocking the food dish off the front corner of the microwave and sending kitty kibble cascading all over the kitchen floor. Again, my feeble attempt to save it only made things worse.

My third and worst oath of the morning darkened the bright, cold air when I went outside to drive to work. In a parking lot filled with cars, mine was the only one whose windows were covered in frost. Surrounded by vehicles with spotless windows, I had to stand in the bitter cold and scrape my front and rear windshields.

In spite of early signs, my day did not turn out to be any unluckier than usual. A superstitous person would nod knowingly and observe that such things come in threes. Me? I just went to work secure in the knowledge that my day could only get better. And, by George, it did!