. . . I can't tell ya, who to sock it to.

Photo location: www.123rf.com

I have many things, little quirks that might seem charming, I guess . . . but probably drive you nuts if you have to put up with them all the time. I'm sure if she has the time and the inclination, Lynda can fill you in on many of them and provide lots of insight into how these traits drive her crazy.

Just now I was confronted with another one. Getting an apple from the refrigerator, I fought off the impulse to dump all of the red and green apples out of their mesh bags as they sat within the plastic drawer. Why? What does it harm anything to have the apples remain in their mesh bags? But, I say internally, Why should they say in the bags while simultaneously sitting in a plastic drawer of a refrigerator?

Does the fact that the drawer is clear plastic have something to do with it? Is there a visual conflict that I see the bags through the plastic drawer and that bothers me more than if the drawer were opaque? Or is it far more likely that somewhere in my life, I saw a refrigerator in a photograph or an advertisement or on a television show and liked the way that one looked. And so I've been spending part of my life trying to recapture that Platonic idea of REFRIGERATOR to my own twisted satisfaction?

Really it simply doesn't matter.

What does matter is that I am now convinced that I hear water dripping behind me and when I turn around and wait very patiently, I see and hear nothing?

See . . . I just did it again . . .

and NOTHING!

(Is the basement gaslighting me? Or is my computer chair trying to drive me insane?)

WHAT the HELL is that NOISE?!!!

***

I didn't take the apples out of the bags. I wanted to (and sometimes in the past, I have.) But I didn't do it this time. I talked myself out of it because I thought it might offend someone else in the family. How and for what reason, I can't begin to articulate to you right now. But that is why I stopped.

Figure the rest out for yourself, because I clearly have no good idea why I do most things.

***

As I was preparing to come downstairs to write this, I had a half-mug of microwaved coffee and a plate of apple slices. But then I was confronted with the basement stairs.

What to do?

Proceeding down the stairs with the plate of food in one hand and the coffee mug in the other was clearly not going to be possible. Most downward staircases give me a slight psychological pause these days anyway, and negotiating one with both hands full was not going to be a good choice.

So, I tried shifting the plate of apples from my left hand and combined that with my coffee mug. But it wasn't working very well and besides, the handrail is on the right side. Okay then. put the plate down on the table, transfer the mug to the left hand. Only hold the mug with a strong index finger curled in the handle.Balance the plate on the stacked curls of the middle, ring, and pinkie fingers. Place the thumb on the plate rim as counterbalance. Does it work? Pause, shift?

Nope. The strength of the index finger isn't holding the mug stiffly enough and it might begin to lean. And if that happens, then your hand muscles will begin to compensate and what might that do to the plate full of apple slices? What if this begins when you're halfway down the stairs? Even holding onto the hand railing, you just aren't sure what your body might try to do to hold it all together.

So . . . you sigh. You admit defeat.

Put the plate of apples down.
Go down the stairs and set the coffee mug on the desk.
Come back upstairs.
Grab the plate.
Return down the stairs.
Sit, type, eat, accept.

Try to forget so that next time, you can just go downstairs like any old body.