Walking on the Moon

As I pad about in the early morning hours readying myself for work (that fragment would bewilder my colleagues who truly believe I just stumble in), I have extended conversations with myself-sort of like pep talks, except I know the true nature of the knucklehead with whom I'm conversing. And, let's face it, it's pretty early and I'm not the sharpest spoon in the drawer even in the middle of the day so looking for intellectual sparks in the wee, small hours is a fool's errand. Probably why I'm up.

I've never really figured out what I did to my hands but on mornings when I shave, they've tried to kill me on more occasions than I can count (and not just because I don't want to get all mathy on you but really because it's been a lot of times). It happened yesterday again-I cut myself under my moustache on the left side. Technically my hands cut me, aided and abetted by my fingers while my eyes watched in the mirror and did nothing.

If you own stock in the Acme Stypic Pencil Company, you should be seeing big, fat bonus checks because I go through their product by the boxcar. My father used little dollops of toilet paper-looking like he had papier-mâché measles on some mornings. I'm a 21st Century Man. I always think I may have cut myself usually just under the Fu part of the Fu Manchu (I like to think it's more Sergeant Pepper but what do I know? I have hands trying to cut my own throat) and I'll start reaching for the styptic pencil. I've graduated to the liquid kind mainly because that's what's been in the stores the last two times I've bought it and it works fine. It staunches the flow and I don't surprise my wife by having drowned in a pool of my own blood in the bathroom (ask her about the apple corer).

Yesterday, the cap on the container was so tight I couldn't get it off. I struggled with the damn thing all the while watching in the mirror as the Red River trickled down my chin and headed south. I recited the 'lefty lucy, rightie tighty' mantra repeatedly (and with a growing sense of urgency) while wrapping the wash flannel around the cap to get traction. Only after I did the 'tap, tap' thing you do with jar lids on a kitchen counter to 'loosen 'em up' did I get the cap, to my utter amazement and bemusement.

Reaching work, I had an opportunity to experience moon gravity as I grabbed the massive glass door at my place of work's main entrance and opened it. Whoa! I practically pulled it off the frame! What I didn't know was the little hydraulic doohickey on the top of the door had broken and the door was hanging on by the three hinges. My first reaction was that my half hour regimen every morning at the gym had finally transformed me into Lou Ferrigno or his ancestor, Charles Atlas.

No such luck-I had a better chance of a sudden diminishing of gravity no matter how much spinach I ate or anchor tattoos I got on my biceps. I did get second chance with the door, however, as the facilities repairmen asked me to hold the 'Don't Use' sign as he searched for tape. I was going to ask if styptic sticks adhere to glass but he may have responded with Shylock's monologue, an exercise both of us would have regretted, but mostly me.
-bill kenny