One of those days…
Why is it that when one thing goes wrong, you usually get a day full of mishaps? Today was one of those days. Chairs breaking under my huge bulk, printers not printing, long post-office queues, longer queues in Stationary Box as loud schoolchildren lined up to buy bright pink Playboy endorsed pen sets ready for the new school term. Then I had trains not arriving, bottoms falling out of boxes, email troubles, and being stuck listening to passengers discussing ‘Eric’s problem’ and the fact that ‘the consultant won’t be able to lance it until it’s the size of a small orange.’ And then I was mistaken for Brad Pit and persuade by scores of adoring young ladies… Well, all that but for the last bit.
The thing is: when life turns ugly, it’s hard not to start believing in a large pair of cosmic scales. It makes me want to get medieval and superstitious, and start seeing the Great Chain of Being. I want to go bend spoons with Uri Gellar. Teach the Pope about miracles. Go burn some witches — I have plenty of names to go at. Against all my better judgement, I seem to suffer the same collective phobia of things scientific as the rest of the country. None of us care much about reason when everything has magic attached to it. We eat good yogurt that fights duels in our gut and listen when Jackie Stallone says she feels something in her water. If Madonna said she rubbed cheese into her elbows to keep her looking young, sales of Cheddar would skyrocket tomorrow. And some great instinct makes us believe that it’s hard to turn a day around once it’s begun to turn bad.
Which brings me to the fact that Steve Irwin died today.
Few people have been portrayed as indestructible in quite the same way that Irwin had over the last few years. It’s a matter of hubris and all that, putting our bad days into perspective, and this tragic event is already being turned into some kind of superstitious episode by sections of the media. It’s already being seen as some great balancing act by a God who had watched the ‘Croc Hunter’ poke his captive handbags with a meaty paw a few too many times. I guess it’s just a way of reassuring ourselves that life is ultimately fair even when it’s being so terribly tragic.
Tomorrow I might just be recognized as Brad Pitt instead of being a failing blogger who struggles to update The Spine each day, thereby creating a site that still attracts a frighteningly large number of people looking for ‘dancing midgets’.