A Bad Day.

BBRRIINNGGGG! The alarm screamed its’ presence. Instinctively, I swung for the snooze button. MISSED! Caught the corner of the night stand … one broken pinky finger. I’m awake now. All previous plans of looking for my yesterdays’ missing shoe vanished.

Rising quickly from bed, I recruited the help of the night stand. My left hand fit ever so nicely on the side board of the slightly opened drawer; how convenient. When rising my right leg struck the night stand causing it to tilt about 15 degrees back. Fifteen degrees doesn’t seem like a lot, but certainly ample, with the weighty contents of the drawer and gravity itself, to slam the drawer shut. Another finger bites the dust.

My “awakeness”, has now peaked. I began flailing my arm with abandon, as if to ward of pain, an involuntary response. My abandon became suddenly focused precisely at the same instant my hand became acutely aware of a slightly off white, sufficiently solid, wall. Suddenly and oddly now aware of the importance of the number three, when the third finger broke. For a moment I believe I even heard the voice of “Count Dracula from Sesame Street” … “One two three, three fingers broken, AH AH AH AH!”

Involuntary responses are not always a good thing. A left over remnant from my childhood convinced me to stamp my foot in frustration. The night before, for reasons unknown, I carelessly left my jeans strewn on the floor at the side of the bed. Seemed innocent enough, at the time; what could “possibli” go wrong. Statistics and probability state nothing about a single occurrence event. The odds that a zipper pull would stand perpendicular, supported by the structural integrity of a concrete floor, at random, is actually a negative number. The zipper pull clearly disagreed with the math and vocalized its’ opposition as only zipper pulls can. The zipper pull opposed, about an inch into my right foot.

Again autonomic responses would prove undesirable. As I grabbed by right foot with my left hand, now known as my good hand, I was quickly reminded of why I never tried the gymnastic balance beam and the tipping point gained a new meaning. Fell into the closet.

Thankfully, my descent from upright humanoid to crumpled mass was slowed by the energy dispersal of my head against an oaken closet door.

Now lying in the back of the closet, in various confusing states of “awakeness”, I spotted my missing shoe. Thought briefly, “this is my lucky day”, then passed out.

I awoke some time later, got dressed and made my way to the nearest hospital. Relatively speaking, the rest of the day was uneventful.

The next morning, when the alarm clock interrupted, I calmly reached under the bed, retrieved a small gauge rifle, took aim, and shot the alarm clock. Unfortunately, using my non-dominant hand and an old casing, I miscalculated. A small back-flash, short lived temporary blindness and an odd burning sensation on the tip of my nose.

Slowly, I put the rifle back in its’ resting place, rolled over and thought, “I’m running out of fingers, I’ll try this again tomorrow”.

AND THAT”S WHY, I never give anyone the finger. Ya never know when you’re going to need it yourself.