Follow the Fortune Cookie

Coconut Curry and Other Common Disasters

"Sometimes we will fall,
from the light
But it shines on us tonight
And together we will rise" - Glen Hansard
Currently listening to: "Rise" - The Frames
Currently reading: "The Queen of Attolia" by: Megan Whalen Turner

It started with a jar of coconut curry. No, if I really thought about it, the culmination of the day started the restlessness that started the moment I woke up this morning. It is hard to explain other than the feeling that something unimaginable has crawled under your skin, and the only way to make it go away is to move. Even with that, there was really nothing to do. The laundry was finished. The mail was taken care of. The chores were finished. Anything within walking that might be amusing was closed. Anyone who want to do anything was attending class. I was a girl dressed up (sort of) with no where to go.

Then an idea struck me and festered in my brain. I could walk to the Target and get something for dinner. There were things in the refrigerator that could be eaten, but it gave me the excuse to get out of the apartment. Mind you, night had already fallen. This freaked my mom out a bit. Not that anything would happen. Not that I couldn't defend myself. I just couldn't think about anything other than getting gone.

I get to Target after walking up the large hill, vastly relieved. (Later, after thinking rationally again, would come to realize I didn't need a destination, I could have strolled anywhere. But having a plan makes me feel like less of a lunatic.) There's a cart at the entrance. I see this as a sign. I stroll through the newly built grocery section and select my prey items - Tomato Basil soup, some lunch meat and bread for a sandwich, applesauce for reasons passing understanding - when I see an "on sale" sign posted under the coconut curry. The possibilities of what I could do with this are astounding. I grab a bottle and roll along.

Then, I get a call on my cell, scaring me out of my hide, making me bump the cart. A crash ensues. I flinch. There is now aromatic orange goo floor sandwiched between the yogurt and frozen chicken fingers aisle. My face was probably the same shade as my soup. It is sufficient to say I wasn't the happiest when I answered the phone.

Now, as I type this out, I keep thinking of West Wing. Who doesn't? *Crickets chirping* Okay, maybe it's just me. Anyway, there's an episode in the first season where the president is tagged by the press because of a golf joke, in which the Ryder Cup team decides not to attend a White House function. After staff discussion about how to prevent such things in the future, led by the press secretary C.J. Cregg, the president states tells her not to worry so much, stating her tombstone will state "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc." - "After this, therefore because of this". There's a discussion on the fallacy that one thing following another is the result of the first occurrence. This was all a way of stating that he didn't lose the Ryder Cup because of the joke. He lost their approval because when learned to speak Latin.

That little show a geek bravado (another line stolen from West Wing) was to state that I don't think I dropped the jar of coconut curry because my phone rang. I dropped the jar the moment I woke up this morning. Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.