On the Diabolical Machinations of Happenstance, or: Why All Klutzes Should Be Masochists

Never fear! There are many ways to ruin your day. Just consider all the legs of furniture, door jambs, curbs, and slight changes in sidewalk elevation that afford the opportunity to stub your toe, to stumble in front of a pretty girl or group of strangers, to catch yourself with an unseductive twist of the hips, an alarmed flail of arms, doe-eyed surprise, or horse hoof clomping feet straining to reach your center of gravity.

Witness and relish the immediate act of jettison, as if what you were carrying were held in highest contempt and belonged scattered on the floor in pieces or blowing loosely out of order soaking up puddles like a janitorial public service. Reflect with horrid delight as a slightly-higher-than-normal-pitched, wordless, garbled expression or yelp involuntarily escapes your throat, which, despite your best attempts at post-crisis nonchalance, renders all hope of sustaining or regaining some semblance of human dignity as futile as trying to pass your toe through legs of furniture, door jambs, curbs, and slight changes in sidewalk elevation.

But do not despair! For when you arrive safe at home behind the walls of anonymity, just remember that as the pretty girl and a few select good Samaritans from the crowd of strangers helped you gather your flotsam, and while you were excruciatingly trying to maintain that façade of composure, walking with that half-concealed limp and grimaced smile, all humans within eye-contact, capable of rudimentary memory retention, and disposed with at least a half-decent sense of humor were replaying your inadvertent interpretive dance in their heads, and may do so ad infinitum for the rest of their lives.