spilling milk

The adage says, spilled milk. No use crying over spilled milk. That's fine.

But what about Spilling Milk?

Ever have those days? Nothing goes right? Left an overhead light on in the car last night, looking for the mouse that fell out of your laptop bag? Next morning, car battery's dead? That's OK; you're still negotiating w/ the kids to strap themselves inside the car, and you've just rescued your car keys from inside the locked house, by breaking into the neighbor's house ... because they have an extra house key to your house. That's OK; car won't start anyway. Where are you going?

It's the spilling milk that gets me. My wife/I both work, and it's a little busy a lot. You're not watching anything closely anymore, and things just seem to happen. Like opening the refrigerator door, nearly every time, and the milk .. falls out .. from the bottom shelf of the fridge .. nearly every time. You can see it as you open the door, leaning against the door rail for a moment. Through the plastic, you see the milk flow, washing like a wave against the carton wall. First toward the back of the fridge, then towards the front of the carton. Tilting, rolling, just beyond the tipping point.

Sometimes it's a gallon, sometimes a pint. Always white, tumbling slowly, but faster than I can reach for it. Sometimes I bang my head on the fridge door while reaching for the milk, sometimes I just jam my hand in the door handle. But you know the milk carton always hits the floor. Only once did I see it pouring out, the milk hitting the floor before the carton. Special moments.

Sometimes I get lucky and it bounces. I haven't caught the carton cleanly yet. Sometimes it doesn't spill, and other times I eat my Honey Oats dry. But once that milk spills, it sets off that chain reaction: a howling cat begging to be fed, children climbing on your back while sponging the floor and the wife who doesn't take her coffee black.

I always think I'm trying my best, but I think maybe I'm only trying hard. The more I concentrate on everything, the more I miss. The original of the expense account on the copier, not closing the opening code in HTML. Where is that e-mail I sent detailing everything everyone was supposed to do? Where are my freaking keys?

The milk never spills for my wife, but you know the girls are going to spill their cereal milk on the couch and knock it over on the restaurant tabel. Life isn't going too fast, sometimes there's just too much happening. It's not big stuff; maybe it's constant maintenance that's cluttering my head.

Reading this, I realize now maybe I'm just jerking open the refrigerator door. But I bet the milk wouldn't spill out of the fridge .. leap out, for chrissakes .. if my fridge had one of those icemakers in the door.