Breakdown

Everything in the Universe is under the same warranty.

That’s the only explanation I can fathom for why everything seems to break at the same time, whether it’s the heater in the bedroom, the modem in the basement, or the lamp that’s been sitting in the living room for over a decade, doing its job uncomplainingly until now.

Plus, a number of aches and pains emerge simultaneously—a sore shoulder, a hip that annoys, wrists that bear less weight than typically—although these might be more easily ascribed to a couple of bike crashes last weekend on invisible ice rather than some strange cosmological phenomena.

And while all these little annoyances are annoying, what’s really bothersome is how they give rise to an observation I’ve observed before, to wit: I’m a terrible lightweight when it comes to dealing with adversity; even the most minor of troubles troubles me far more than it should, should I have any interest whatsoever in imagining myself as someone who can suck up and deal with whatever life deals me, I’m fooling myself, fool that I am.

I don’t know how people who get flooded out, or whose homes catch fire, or who drunkenly drive their cars through living room windows manage; I can hardly manage it when I spill wet coffee grounds on the counter, but in my defense, that’s usually in the morning before I’ve had my coffee, and you can be sure that if I knew the river was rising, I’d get way caffeinated beforehand.

At least that’s what I say; one of the main difficulties with things falling apart is that they do so unannounced; if the Universe had given me a heads-up that the heater was going to croak, I could have made arrangements to mitigate things—an extra blanket, maybe.

The broken internet, though; that’s different: you shoulda seen Mimi’s face when when I said, in the meantime, we might have to talk to each other.