Prosthetic Conscience

Cascade Failure

One thing I don’t understand is why when something goes wrong, seemingly unrelated things start going wrong as well. For example:

1. The toilet stops up and overflows, despite there being no obvious reason for it to do so.

2. While I wait for the water level in the toilet to go down enough that I can use the plunger, I go to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. Getting the orange juice, I notice that some oatmeal from a breakfast inexplicably preserved in a roll of aluminium foil is clinging to it, but that’s not relevant yet. As I get a glass for the orange juice out of the cabinet, I knock a wine glass off the counter top. I almost, but don’t quite, catch it before it hits the floor and shatters.

3. After I clean up as much of the broken glass as I can find, using a broom and dustpan and at no time, as far as I know, I head back to the office. On the way back, I notice that I have somehow gotten oatmeal (from the refrigerator, remember) on the bottom of my sock, and am tracking it around, so I clean it up and go back to the kitchen to trash it.

4. I clean up some more oatmeal that I find on the floor, and notice a small dark-brown smudge on the floor. Figuring it is somehow oatmeal-related, I wipe it up with a finger to find that it is, actually, not dark brown, but red, and, in fact, it is blood. But whose? Careful examination of my hands shows that it is mine, and that a very small cut on my left index finger is bleeding profusely, and that I have already gotten blood all over my favourite pair of pants.

5. The bandages are in the bathroom, where the toilet has recently overflowed. I get myself bandaged and then unclog the toilet with a plunger, and blot most of the blood off of my pants with a cold, damp washcloth. I hope that the string of minor misfortunes ends here.

This kind of thing tends to happen much more when I am already depressed or anxious. I suspect that this implies that lack of mindfulness is somehow involved, or possibly I just get clumsy when I’m upset.

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