This morning has provided proof (if any was required) that I am indeed a “Strange Attractor”. You may be wondering what I’m talking about.
In the terms of chaos mathematics, a “strange attractor” is any object or device that causes statistically unlikely results to occur within it’s presence. A good example is buttered toast, and the incidence of it falling buttered side down. While I know that we only recall the times it falls face down, I’m sticking to that example because others are more difficult to explain, and it’s still only 07:19 at the time of writing.
How does this phenomenon revolve around me then?
I got up at 6:15am. While trying to find a matching pair of socks I ended up pulling in the region on 30 different socks from the bedside cabinet. The final sock I retrieved matched another sock in the group. While picking up he MacBook (I had been listening to music on iTunes when I went to bed last night), the headphone and power cables both wrapped around both of my feet, forming their own sheet bends on my ankles.
Once extricated, I made my way down to the shower, and discovered that my shampoo had mysteriously vanished. Maybe the shower fairies had borrowed it. The same thing had happened to my shoes. I finally found them under a bag in the lounge. After a trip back upstairs to retrieve a belt for my trousers (I have several belts - at least 4 - but have settled on one for the last several months due to the disappearance of the others), I went to make a cup of tea.
Through not washing up on Sunday night, three or four plates, a couple of mugs and a saucepan were sitting at various strategically untidy places around the kitchen. In one night they had become infested with flies (figure that out - it’s been extremely cold outside). I had no time to clear everything away or do any exterminations, so had to leave them. I will not have to throw away the vegetables that have been left out when I get home tonight - as well as wash the kitchen tops down (they were only washed down on Friday, and we have not been in since… where the HELL are the flies from?)
By now it’s ten minutes to seven, and my body decides - on cue - that it needs to empty itself of just about everything.
Ten minutes later I am throwing my coat on, and about to leave the front door. Except my front door key no longer works. It only leaves the lock when the lock is locked. I then discover that the front door has actually been unlocked all night, and that removing the key from the lock is only possible with the bolt sticking out (i.e. the world is operating completely backwards by now). The deepest reaches of my memory recall that this happened once before - that you needed two front door keys to put it right - one on the outside to hold the lock barrel, and one on the inside to turn the lock.
Okay - where is a second house key? W has a second key. Where are W’s keys? In her bag. Where is her bag? Ah. W split her keys - she didn’t have them yesterday. Where is the house key? In the car. Where are the car keys? In her bag. Where is her bag? Who knows…
I ran into the kitchen - looking for any spare front door key. By now I had my keys in the door, but the bolt sticking out so I could not close it. Furthermore, I could not pull my keys from the door without the bolt sticking out… like some kind of demented Rubiks puzzle.
I found a key on the dresser in the kitchen. While scrabbling with keys in both sides of the front door, W came down the stairs in her pyjamas “What are you doing?”…
When manipulated with two keys, the lock magically righted itself, and I retrieved my house keys… and began running to the station.
If a Monday morning starts like this, what else could happen, I wondered.
While walking along a completely deserted Station road, my answer was presented. As I approached each and every t-junction, a car appeared like a scene from the Truman show. As I needed to walk across to the station entrace, each car I passed started it’s engine at the moment I came to it’s corner.
Just to cap it off, the train is the busiest I have ever seen it.
Wonderful. I arrived at a train station a few seconds after writing that last sentence, and had no option but to put the laptop away for the remainder of the journey - so many people got on that nobody had any room to do anything; apart from the usual ignorant people who insist on reading their newspapers across adjacent people’s laps. I swear - if one of these morning trains crashed, nobody would get hurt because nobody can move on-board the train.
Trying to walk between the underground platform at Liverpool Street and the exit was a trial too - everyody and their dog seemed to cross my path and find me in their way. Remembering that I’m twice the size of most people, it’s quite disconcerting that it’s always me that makes way for others.
If the rest of the week carries on like this, I have no idea what I will do with myself. W is threatening to buy a whistle and blow it every time I start moaning about something - but with a life that tends to unfold like this morning has on a daily basis, can you blame me?
It’s not that anything terrible ever happens. Lots of small things happen. Small things that eat away at you. Elements of unfairness. Unjustness. I worry that I will experience a “Falling Down” moment in the middle of London - maybe not walk into the middle of a fast food restaurant with a shotgun, but some form of polite rebellion maybe.
Oh - nearly forgot - had to buy another hair brush on the way to work because W borrowed mine and I forgot to get it back. While buying it, the assistance in WH Smiths in Liverpool Street Station dropped my change across the counter, didn’t help pick it up, and then didn’t hand me the new brush - she just sat with it on her side of the counter, gawping at me.
See what I mean?