Wednesday, August 17, 2011

I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue

Last night, an elaborate chain of Rube Goldbergian events conspired that would have been funny in a movie; in real life, not so much.

My evening started innocuously enough with a trip to Target. When I got home, I popped open my trunk and surveyed my bounty. I didn't want to make more trips than necessary, since it was late and I just wanted to shower and watch the season finale of Masterchef, so I decided to carry everything upstairs in one go. One of my neighbors was tossing trash bags into the dumpster, and he called out, "Hey, do you need help with those?"

"Oh, I'm fine!" I chirped. "I've got a lot of stuff here, but none of it's heavy. Thank you, though!"

Famous last words.

By the time I got upstairs, my arms were killing me. Instead of putting the bags on the ground like a normal person, I hugged them (and a 12-pack of Coke Zero) to my chest as I fumbled with the keys. The bags began to slip, and in the process of hefting them upwards, the edge of the Coke Zero carton ripped a huge fucking gash across my chin.

"MotherFUCKER!" I cried out, kicking the door open and dropping the bags onto the ground. Grabbing my stinging, bleeding face, I staggered to the bathroom mirror and surveyed the damage. I didn't have any bandages big enough to cover it, so I MacGyver'd one out of two small ones and a wad of toilet paper.

Very fetching.

Thus patched up, I returned to the living room and began putting things away. As I was sticking something in the freezer, a bottle of chocolate coconut water rolled out of the bag...

...and the lid, which I assume had been knocked loose when I dropped the bags, popped off and splattered liquid all over my counter and floor. It looked for all the world like someone or something had decorated my kitchen with diarrhea; a Jackson Poo-llock, if you will.

More swear words filled the air as I cleaned up the mess.

Finally, everything was put away except for that goddamn 12-pack of Coke Zero. I slid it into the fridge and ripped away the little cardboard "door" to allow easy access...

...and then I heard a faint hissing noise.

Yes, one of the cans had somehow sprung a leak, and I pawed through the carton to find the culprit. Of course it was near the very back, and in the few seconds it took me to find it, the can managed to spray most of its contents all over the bottom shelf of my fridge. Cue more swearing and more cleaning up, although a lot of it managed to get caught underneath the seal of the crisper and I could not, for the life of me, get it out. So now I have a big ugly puddle of Coke Zero stuck there and it will probably erode the seal of my crisper so yay!

Finally, my assorted messes were cleaned up and my purchases were put away and I was ready for a shower. But as I headed towards the bathroom, I noticed, no exaggeration, THE biggest spider I've ever seen in my apartment crawling up the wall.

I chuckled, but there was no humor in it. It was the kind of laugh you'd hear from a serial killer or a particularly sadistic clown.

"Oh, you little bastard, you picked the wrong night to mess with me," I whispered.