Ingrid and I leave in a few days for a trip to New Mexico. Ingrid needs to see her baby nephew real bad and I am obligated to attend her. I am currently out of work, so the very concept of a trip to another part of the country is abhorrent to me. I cannot align Not Having Income with Doing Anything But Looking For Work.
We have two full days between now and departure. I am already developing cold sores from the stress of it all. We have someone housesitting (after my niece failed her responsibility roll and bitched out on us), so we have to prepare the house for company and make it a place that our sitter won't just say, "You know, screw this whiny dog, I'm out."
This morning, I decide to get a mile or two of walking in, since we'll probably walk about that much between trains and planes and layovers and rental car places. I do not do this in the morning, for fear of a rain forecast. In the afternoon, having done some dishes and made a list of things for our housesitter, I decide to go.
I pick up my messenger bag (manpurse) and notice that my headphones are dragging along with it. Why is this? Apparently, left unattended, headphone wires infiltrate zippers. And not even the wholly-predictable "got caught in the" zipper, but actually entwined in the zipper's head. The little eye that holds down the zipper pull? Somehow, my headphone wire is THROUGH that eye. It looks physically impossible. And yet.
So, provable noncausality aside, this is not a big deal, I'll just fix it. It's a small problem, I'm a grown man, I (and when I say "I" I of course mean "Ingrid") have a tool kit. Let's just apply our minds and our leverage to see this through.
Ten minutes later, I have ruined the finish on the zipper head, the wire is still in there, and I'm cursing at an empty stairwell.
Since the zipper is already Baghdad, I don't really display much concern in my further efforts. Maybe this is why it finally works - having accomplished its goal of enraging me, there's no need to retain the wire any longer.
Momentarily relieved, I separate the zipper and the wire and then renew my efforts to go out and walk the earth like Caine from Kung Fu. I place the headphones around my neck and go to zip up the bag.
Except now the zipper pull is gone, since I just opened up the eye that holds it in place.
Resume impotent rage and cursing. (Keep in mind, Ingrid is about seven feet from me for most of this process. She's working. She has a job. What's my problem?) I have to search on my hands and knees for a bit before locating it, and then I have to figure out how to re-close the eye so it won't promptly drop the pull again.
[HAMMERING.]
Okay, there. Good. Deep breaths. We have a bag that can zip shut, we have headphones so we can listen to Adam WarRock music on our errands. We will accomplish things and feel a sense of peace. I do not have much, and look forward to less, but I will have this.
I step outside and a raindrop smacks me in the forehead.
--4:15 PM, EDT, Philadelphia, PA, i don't sleep, cuz sleep is the cousin of death
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