Spills Note:
Two in Two
15 April 2019
Tomorrow, if I make it that far, I’ll be hoping that things don’t always come in threes.
Last night, reaching for a cutting board in the kitchen, I knocked a bottle of peanut oil off the counter. Because it was plastic, the bottle didn’t break, but the screw-top popped off, and about half the half-full bottle’s contents poured oozily onto the floor. The floor had just been professionally cleaned on Saturday.
Most of the oil came up after paper towels took an hour to absorb it. Hands and knees will be involved in scrubbing up the remainder.
Then, this morning — just now — I reached for the German dictionary to look up a word, and the Spanish dictionary next to it tipped over. It fell gently, and although it did not disturb the bowl of cereal at my left, it did hit it. That ought to have been a warning. Impatiently, I pushed the dictionary back up. It came right back down — with the full weight of my ancient Cassell’s Latin dictionary behind it. This time, the bowl tipped, too, and milk spilled onto and over the desk — puddling on a manuscript from which it dribbled into my small collection of LPs. Milk everywhere, in short.
I bellowed, indicating low levels of serenity. Then I cleaned up the mess.
The cause of both spills was my lazy accommodation of a perpetually stiff neck. In neither case was I looking at what I was doing. That isn’t going to change. What I’m learning is how to arrange things so that accidents … are less likely.