Knocking Shit Over

There is a special kind of hate one saves for oneself. Mine starts like this: I go into the bathroom to apply a product to self -- hair gel or something. This should be simple enough, for someone who's pretty graceful and not even drunk. But I reach down toward the gel bottle and miss because I'm not paying attention or because I'm so tired I close my eyes for a second and am like, sleep-primping. My hand has suddenly grown into an enormous, mallet-like appendage, and I knock over the big bottle of mouth wash, which I don't know why we own, since no one ever uses it. It's so big it takes up almost the entire home--extending beyond the bathroom somehow, at least in concept. The mouthwash falls and knocks over the perfume bottle and 29 other things, since it is so gargantuan. Then, as I try to pick these up, I knock over the 38 small samples B and I keep because we're product whores. Our WHOLE ENTIRE Sephora stockpile goes skittering all over the counter and floor, making a shit-ass bunch of noise, and knocking other stuff over, too. By now I have a headache, so I open the medicine cabinet, and when I grab the Tylenol my pinkie grazes the shelf, and because medicine cabinet manufacturers are masters of Precarious Shelf Creation, everything on all three shelves tumbles out.

The counter is now an empty plain where once there was bounty, and each item has landed in the worst possible place. The mascara managed to open itself (how? how??) and smear black on the white towels, even though they're on the other side of the room. The bleach pen has burst a hole in its container and is leaking onto the blue bath mat and also my shirt. Somehow both toothbrushes end up in the unflushed-to-conserve-water toilet, even though I swear to god the lid was closed, the tweezers are embedded in my thigh, and the Toxic, Poison mildew remover has exploded and splashed me in the face. (I don't know why the bleach pen is on the bathroom counter instead of, say, the laundry room. Sigh. A mystery.)

A product minefield

"Excuse me," I say to the stuff I've knocked over, because in addition to being a clumsy oaf, I somehow don't recall that beauty products do not understand English. So I continue talking. What can I say? I'm a communicator. "Stop. Falling. Over!" I tell the stuff as the clatter dies down. I am furious but whispering, since of course this type of thing only ever happens when we have people over -- normal ones who don't engage in such fool behavior as talking to products. And why am I sleep-primping in the middle of our social time? That, people, is another question, for another day.

After everything has fallen, I usually take a moment of stillness. Silence. Breathe. Etc. Also, must be still because there's broken glass all over the floor, and I'm barefoot. I decide the gel isn't worth it -- my hair is a wreck by now anyway, and it really doesn't matter, what with the tweezers stuck in my thigh, blood dripping down my leg, and the skin of my face smoking under the mildew remover. ER staff doesn't care about my hair--only tetanus shots. The best I can do is hope the side effect of this whole interlude will be my looking cutely disarrayed. After my little bathroom meditation, I bend over to pick up one item which I drop on the way up. Why? Momentary paralysis? Arthritis? Epileptic seizure? No. No reason at all. You know, like, just because. Then I attempt to shuffle toward the door, thinking I'll leave this whole mess while I'm still alive. I slip on a tube of lipstick and go hurtling, headfirst, into the toilet bowl. This does not help my headache at all!

By this time I'm not mad at the products anymore. I'm mad at self. So I do this thing I think everyone does. I start saying "moshum fetter shonish vu!" and that kind of thing. You may think I'm trying to speak to the products in their native language. However! I am attempting to say "#!!*%" which, loosely translated, means "omg, it's fucking unbelievable how much I suck!" I'm attempting to say this in English. Which products don't speak. Because I am a communicator. 

Do you hate me yet? I do. I mean, not only have I knocked enough shit over to frighten myself with the noise, but now I am talking to products and seem unable to pick up something and lift it two and a half feet without dropping it. I am concussed and bleeding and need a tetanus shot. And did I mention I'm not even drunk?

Hate, hate, hate.
The end.