Query, Then Confession

Question: If you drive for miles and MILES down the freeway in a snowstorm behind a car with vanity plates reading, "Tropic," can you blame the snowfall on Universal Irony? Or, better yet, can you blame the drivers of the "Tropic" car?

Confession: Yesterday I did a three'fer. First, in walking the five feet from one room to the adjoining one (in the dark, I grant you - but it was only five feet - RIGHT?) I hit the door-frame with my left cheekbone. I iced that one for a while (I try to keep the bruising OFF of my face as much as possible). It hurt.

Afterward, I had a doctor's appointment, and I was going to be late (come on, one can FEIGN amazement), so I was running up the stairs from the basement. On the fourth or fifth stair, I somehow tackled BeBe. I, in truth, LANDED ON HER. Now, I've stepped on my share of cats (ACCIDENTLY - they DO stand right under your feet sometimes - and they get there so quietly - with "catlike tread," you know), and have even squashed the wee paws of my own Kitten Children with my clogs that have huge solid wood platform bottoms. They have, thus far, survived without injury. BeBe, however, did not respond well to my substantial mass alighting directly upon her. She ran and hid under the bed in the guest room. In my defense, I must point out that BeBe is INVISIBLE in dim light (or, as one might logically conclude, in the dark), so I could NOT see her at all. I HAD to check and see if she had any serious injury, but she would NOT come out from under the bed. Usually, the rattling of tartar-control treats in a little Tupperware® container causes her to come running from ANY part of the house; if she's beneath the bed she will pop out so fast you'd think there was a fire under there. But she was evidently too traumatized to respond even to the alluring clatter of TARTAR-CONTROL TREATS! I beseeched and entreated and cajoled, but she was having NONE of it. She'd eat a treat from my hand if I put it right in front of her (with a look on her face like she was doing me a HUGE favour) but that was it. Finally, I had to DRAG her from under the bed to see if her small limbs were intact. After a very cursory examination she ran away so quickly that I was left with the impression that she had no critical wounds. But MY knee hurt.

Lastly, I was in an examination room at the doctor's office, waiting for my physician to finish with her previous patient. I somehow FLUNG the contents of my largish water bottle to the ground. On its way, it managed to THOROUGHLY soak the chair and chair seat (and my generous posterior in the process), saturate the paperwork on the OTHER side of me, and make a huge puddle on the floor. I used about a bazillion paper towels in the process of soaking it up. When my doctor came in, the floor had a large area covered in spread-out paper towels and I was sitting on a paper towel "cushion." Upon entering, she asked, "How are YOU?" And I said, in a VERY tragic voice (as though announcing the heartrending deaths of EVERYONE related to me), "I just spilled my water all over." I have a sneaking suspicion that I ended up with stronger medication than I might have if I hadn't opened that way. (It was "medication assessment" visit - you know - where I go and say, "That didn't really work either, but at least it didn't make me want to hurt anyone or have overwhelming and obsessive thoughts of death." That's how it's gone for the past four years, at any rate.)

Okay, SECRETLY I have one more question. Does this material really appeal to anyone's perverse sense of amusement? At least then my hurts and wounds and STUPIDITY would have a purpose...