The Longest Now

I’ve been thinking a lot about the best children’s book ever. Not that one with demons and archangels and archaeopteryx hanging out in the museum post-twilight, bathing in the fountains and gathering plastic four-leaf clovers from the astroturf. No, I mean the one with the astonishing string of meaningless, mundane coincidences leading to a Really Bad Day.

Well, supersimultaneity has always been part of my life. I’ve mused
elsewhere that it is part of the universe in general, but people who I
mention this to often say they’ve never noticed it. In my case,
it has been particularly
striking over the last many years, at least since a fateful, related
conversation with Sarah Ettling. Perhaps that’s evidence in favor of it being a matter of perception…

Often the results are so strange that I never share them with other people
because, well, why bother them with meaningless improbabilities?
I’m still taking flack for telling people about the disturbing smiley-face biscuit that turned up under my hood the night my battery mysteriously died in the STAR market parking lot.

But I’m feeling more open towards the world these days, and towards humanity, and ee only humour in those very improbabilities; perhaps you will, too.

Take the other day, for instance, when I lost three contact lenses and my last pair of glasses. One of my contact lenses had been
bothering me, and I had left it out to soak. When I tried to put
my contacts in again, it wouldn’t stay in my eye; meanwhile, as I was
cleaning its partner, that lens tore a bit along the edge. Its
time had definitely come. I had a spare which I had only weeks ago put away its old case, but on going to take it out, found it had grown mold… three dark spots which could be mostly (but not completely)
rubbed away. Now there’s something I hope never to see again. Was that saline solution or lens solution it was in? [update: it was surely lens solution.  and there was a class action lawsuit and a massive recall]

No problem, I thought, I’ll wear glasses. I’ve had three pairs in recent memory, and two had already broken earlier this year. The third and newest pair,ultra-thin, had been lost; but turned up again in an
onslaught of cleaning… perfect. But after wearing
them for a bit, as I took them off to lay them down, without provocation, *tink*
— one arm sheared away and clattered softly onto my dresser, not a
millimeter from the hinge. That’s metal shear on two pairs of glasses
in as many weeks.

I must have been communicating to my belongings that I wanted to relax with my textbooks and forget about going outside today.

Then there was the day the sink and two electric razors fought with me
while I was shaving, and the front door shattered… but those are stories
for another time.