The Law of Attraction

There is a dresser in our house that sits in an awkward place. It’s not it’s permanent situation yet, but it should still be passable. And it is passable . . . by 50% of the people in our house. I am the 50% who cannot make it past the dresser unharmed every time.

I should add that it’s only been sitting there for two days and I have wacked my arm on it in precisely the same spot eight times and counting. There is a slight bruise growing and a small welt forming. I’ve begun nursing it with arnica gel but it’s developing a low-grade generalized ache none-the-less.

My husband (the 50% of us without a problem) finds it annoying. Not the dresser, he’s never once run into it. It’s my crying out each time the irresistible force of my bruised arm meets with the immovable object that seems to discomfit him.

“Why do you do that?”

“Because it hurts!”

“No, I mean why do you keep hitting it?”

“I’d love to stop, but I’m not doing it on purpose. It just happens.”

“Never happens to me.”

Sometimes spouses are helpful like that.

The weird thing about repeated injuries of this nature is that eventually you do ‘stop doing that’. I, for instance, seem to have developed a neurotic tick every time I traverse the space between my writing room and the kitchen. I’ll be walking along, thinking about the cup of coffee I’m going to make and which of my favourite mugs to pour it into, and suddenly my right arm will just sort of suck right up tight to my body. And I’m thinking what the…? Sometimes it just rises up in the air, cruising above the dresser like a kid making wavy lines out the car window on a hot summer day.  The strange phenomenon started this afternoon, following the mightiest wack, so far, that took a thin layer of skin off and almost made me cry.

But now it’s late and somewhere near midnight, my nervous system got sloppy.

WACK!!

“OWWW…”

“Why do you do that?”

(Eye roll)