To say that I’m a bit absent-minded wouldn’t be far from the truth.

As a kid and up through college, I was infamous for loosing things.  If it was vaguely important, I lost it.  Keys.  Shoes.  Gloves.  Pieces of any uniform.  Text books.  Homework.  Shit, I went through four retainers in about two years!  (The ironic part?  I still have the last one.)  I’m terrible about thoughtlessly putting things down, and later forgetting where I put said item.  As a result, sometimes bad things, (like not being able to find something right when I need it, loosing important pieces to an object or a set, loosing very valuable or meaningful objects,) tend to happen to me.

But sometimes, even when I’m not being careless or spacey, bad things still happen to me.  I call it serenfuckity.

Serendipity is what happens when you’re going about your business, and you happen upon something awesome.  Serenfuckity is what happens when you’re going about your business, and bad shit happens anyway.  And not just bad shit.  The worst possible shit that could happen.

Take last night.  Every solitary flat surface in our kitchen is full of dishes, including parts of the floor.  I’m tired, but I’m going to roll up my sleeves and dive in anyway.  Aren’t I responsible?  Before getting started though, I take off my wedding and engagement rings; don’t want to get soap and nasty food crap in my diamond.  Aren’t I responsible?  I place them where I always do, in a spoon rest on the back of the stove, out of the way.  Aren’t I responsible?

First thing I did was to attempt to move a giant pot of noodle-soaking water from the back burner of the stove.  As I did, the handle of the pot accidentally hit my spoon rest.  And flipped it.

Serenfuckity.

Okay, no need to panic.  I start picking through the dirty dishes.  They’ve probably just fallen down somewhere on the stove.  I find my wedding band fairly quickly, though it’s traveled farther than I suspected.  No sign of my engagement ring.  I keep searching.

Ten minutes go by.  I call my husband over to help me in my search.  We take each dish out of the sink individually and search the sink.  We take the stove top apart.  We sweep the floor on our hands and knees.  “Is there any chance it fell behind the stove?” Kyle asked.  “Honey, anything’s possible,” I responded.  We keep searching.

We pull the stove out and search behind it.  We find a gel pen, a guitar pick, and a suspicious amount of paper clips.  We get down on our hands and knees and run our fingers over every surface.  And finally, Kyle spots it.  It has fallen behind the stove and into the gap between the wall and the floor.  It is lying precariously on a bit of insulation inside the wall.  Oh, and did I mention that we live on the second floor?  It could not have fallen in a worse place.

Serenfuckity.

I run for a wire coat hanger, and breathes held, Kyle manages to fish it out.  It’s got a dust bunny clinging to it, but it’s none worse for the wear.  I’ve been extremely lucky, because all it took was a slip of the hanger and that thing was tumbling down into the wall one floor down.  And at that point, either we’re tearing the first floor wall apart, or it’s gone forever.

I was trying to be responsible.  My ring is the most beautiful, precious, and expensive object I’ve ever owned, (sentimental value aside,) and I was trying to take care of it, protect it.  And through an incredible bout of bad luck, I managed to loose it in the worst possible place, and came very close to loosing my most prized and precious possession.

Serenfuckity.

{ 6 comments }