spilt

I had just finished my workout, stair machine and treadmill, and was about to climb the four floors of stairs back to my desk. The door to the stairs has a card reader, you have to get in close to scan your badge, which I had just done when the door absolutely burst open, into my shoulder, and a young man came flying out. I shouted “oh my goodness!” over my headphones, completely startled and a little pushed back from the impact force. He and I were checking ourselves over to see if we were okay, asking each other. He reached out, I think wanting some reassurance that I hadn’t been hurt; I reached back and for a second touched his hand and said I was okay. While we were sorting out if we had caused each other any damage a second young man caught up and also came to the still open door in a hurry. I was okay and he was okay, and so we went on our own ways, mine up the stairs and theirs down the hall. The back side of the door has a warning sign about opening the door with caution.

Ali was in a hurry, getting her things together and loading her bags and measuring water for her morning protein shake, when she bumped the glass and it toppled from the counter to the floor and loudly shattered to pieces. It’s always kind of amazing how glass does that, all the poised tension and potential just frozen into some unnatural shape and released with a pop, the bits scattering across the floor. Ali said “oh. I’m sorry.” and I said “Which one was it, and are you ok?” I didn’t think the Duralex glasses were that fragile, and suspected it was that old beer glass I had set out. We could do with fewer glasses and cups in the cupboard, and breaking them is one way to make that happen. I wasn’t wearing shoes yet, or socks, so I stayed where I was until Ali got me a pair of Crocs. She swept, I vacuumed, and she left on time.

I was making dinner and had a bag of sous vide beef in its juices, from Costco, that I needed to get to the pan. For some reason, I cut it open over the sink, I guess to catch any spilling. But I needed all the juices and the pan is where they were supposed to go. So I had cut that bag all quite open to get out the precut beef, and was rotating about to get over the pan. A bunch of dribbles fell out onto the floor. Another spill. The same floor we had just swept and mopped in the morning. I needed to eat soon so I could have a bit of time before going to the gym. The physical objects, they just aren’t cooperating right now. Ali helped clean it up while I continued to hurry dinner preparation.

Later that night I found one more tiny shard of glass, a sliver, with my bare foot.

jg