Oh, shit

I once read in a book a character’s lament that went something along the lines of ‘anytime anything wet falls out of the sky, it always lands on me.’ Which is generally true of me as well: I always get hit by the mystery drop, that bit of water that has somehow managed to condense from the clear sky above; that pregnant drop dangling from every wall unit air conditioner, leaky ceiling, or other overhead surface capable of keeping the slightest bit of water tension, waiting to birth its sodden offspring into the nursery of my shoulder. It’s quite an amazing feat really, statistically speaking. I mean, there has got to be an almost infinitely small chance that out of all the surface area of the earth, out of all the time that I spend indoors versus outdoors, that I so often happen to be in just the right place at just the right time to receive these little drips. I figure that either I am a distant cousin of the rain god Douglas Adams wrote about or that god is spitting on me. At any rate, it was not really a surprise today when I felt that sudden splat, that little pixie’s flick on my head. No, the surprise came when I went to wipe it off and I felt the texture of it. Yes, texture is a bad sign. My horror continued to grow as I pulled my hand away and saw white on my hand. I think that it’s a testament to my defiance of bird-flu hysteria that I did not immediately (this was just at the start of my evening walk) turn around and give myself a Silkwood scrub-down. I waited until my walk was complete to do that. But I needed to figure out how badly I had been shat upon; after all, one doesn’t want to walk around so uncaring about one’s appearance. Besides, that would have been giving license for passersby to call me “shithead”. So I sort of scrubbed at it, flinging my hand in what I hoped was a subtle yet effective method for shaking the “doo” off the lily, until I could perceive no more residue on either my hand or head. And then I made my merry way up and back down the trail, joyfully cursing every feathered friend I met and wishing them a horrid, miserable death.