Klutz

I saw stars when I slammed my forehead into the corner of the cupboard door, which was half opened.

This is nothing new. I do it all the time. In fact, I did it again the very next day on the very same cupboard door.

My mother-in-law, many, many years ago, read an article about Aquarians and while talking to her daughter on the phone said that Aquarians are the kind of people who rarely close drawers or cupboards all the way. Alice Nan, an Aquarian, looked around her kitchen and realized that all of her drawers and cupboards were open ever so slightly.

I forget to close cupboards. I forget to closer drawers. I forget to close the microwave door and then I curse myself when I run into them accidentally.

I forget to close the dryer door after I've emptied it and then can't get back in the laundry room because it slowly swings open again and blocks the room door from opening.

I don't know if my klutziness is a result of my astrological sign or whether I have just honed it to a fine art over the years.

My mother tells the story about one morning when I was going to the corner to catch a bus to go to school. We lived on one of the steeper hills in San Francisco and each morning I would come out our door, put my head down and run up the hill.

Only this particular morning, I failed to notice a huge ladder leaning against the side of the building and, while my mother watched from the big bay window, I ran smack into it.

I'm always running into things, tripping over things, or bumping into things. When we were in a small pet boutique store in Seattle, Peggy turned and looked at me and pointed to the door. "Wait outside," she ordered. I had just bumped one too many things for her to feel comfortable being with me. She had become aware of my klutziness the week before in San Diego when we were in a nice little shop in Old Town and I nearly knocked over some expensive gigaw or other. I think she told me to wait outside then too.

I am the person who always has food stains on my clothes because I seem incapable of getting a fork to my mouth without dropping half of its contents on my bosom. When I was in Australia, Peggy told me that the reason I did that was because I didn't sit close enough to my plate. I've tried to fix that problem, but it seems that only by putting my mouth at the edge of the plate and shoveling the food in can I completely avoid spilling food (and even then I'm sure some would fall out the corners onto my pants).

The dogs love me because when I get into my recliner at night, they can make a second meal just by cleaning stuff off of my shirt.

There was a time when my excuse for being such a klutz was that I did everything too fast. Years and weight have made speed less of a problem, but it hasn't seemed to have cured the klutz factor.

Things slip out of my hands, my elbow knocks things on the end table on the floor, I spill dog food when I go to put it in the dogs' bowls. I don't think I've made a single bottle for our new puppies without having to clean up warm water or powdered formula that didn't quite get into the proper container...or both. It's a good thing I breastfed all of our kids; I hate to think what it would have been like if I'd had to prepare bottles for each of them!

The dogs have learned to be in the kitchen when I make dinner because sooner or later I'm going to spill something yummy on the floor. Our first dog, Mutt, learned to come running when he heard a crash and an expletive. He was a great floor cleaner.

I won't even begin to list the kinds of things that a klutz can do to a computer.

The family knows that my after-death preference is to be cremated and buried somewhere near Paul and David's ashes. I'm certain that somewhere between the crematorium and the grave, someone is going to trip and spill my ashes.

It seems like it would be a most appropriate way for me to go out, blowing carelessly in the wind.