Welcome to the inner workings of my mind

Now and then, for reasons unclear to me, I just short circuit for a couple days. Some part of my brain that is vital for basic, day-to-day functions dons its dancing shoes and does the hokey-pokey into the merry old land of Oz for a little fiesta, unforgivably leaving the rest of me here to deal with the weird looks from those who witness my scatterbrained wackiness. I fall short of actual hallucinations but I have these moments where the world just ceases to make sense to me; either that or it makes perfect sense to me but only to me (which is, it has to be said, not better). I frequently refer to these as “purse in the fridge, milk in the closet” days… take a guess why that is. Yup, good guess. I actually did that once.   I was going through such a phase last week and it’s kind of hilarious. Brief back-story for later: the last time I ran the dishwasher a plastic water bottle lid fell down and melted on the element, causing the entire load of dishes to wind up smelling like burnt plastic, including the water bottle I use at work. I hand washed the water bottle though and it no longer smiled like burnt plastic and I was happy. Remember this story for later. On Sunday, I was driving to the store and a bee was buzzing around my window while stopped at a stop light. The windows were up and for some reason I reached out to lock my car door. Wait, it gets better. I stopped before actually locking the door and laughed at myself, thinking, “What did I think was going to happen? Worst case, it would sting me! I’m not allergic. Silly Deleva!” Yeah, that’s right. I laughed at myself, but not because bees can’t open fucking car doors no matter how locked they aren’t. I didn’t laugh at myself because it was just a bee, as opposed to something that should really provoke me to need to protect myself, like John Malkovich with a hatchet and blood under his fingernails. No. I laughed because the bee, once it had it Hulked its way into my car like a deranged, mutated horror movie superbee, it could only harm me a little bit. Then Tuesday was the piece de resistance. The whole morning was fail on a level with this guy.

And it was sneaky fail, too. I had been failing for hours before I even noticed. Either that or the cranial hiccup that was making me fail in the first place was also making me oblivious (which is much more likely). I finally began to notice the proverbial toilet paper stuck to my shoe when I was in the checkout at the grocery store.

I stopped by Freddie’s to grab something for breakfast and lunch as well as some stuff like shampoo and conditioner. Keep in mind that I am, at this point, still unaware of the fail. I went to the correct aisle and reached for my conditioner of choice. As I did so, I thought to myself, “Make sure to grab the conditioner not the shampoo. The bottles look alike so be sure to grab the right one.” I grabbed the bottle and moved on. I then went to the frozen foods aisle and grabbed what I wanted for lunch and breakfast. A box fell out of the freezer and I picked it up and put it back in, and moved on with my so far delightful shopping experience. At least three employees stopped and asked me if I needed help with anything. I thought it odd at the time as, while the employees at this store are always nice, they’re not usually so solicitous. I now suspect they probably perceived a helpless vacancy to my expression of which I was unaware.

So I did the self check out and began ringing up my items. When I went to scan the conditioner, I noticed that it wasn’t fucking conditioner. It was shampoo. Apparently in the two seconds between me reminding myself to grab the right fucking thing and actually putting my hands on the item, I completely forgot my own reminder. Feeling too lazy to cancel my order and go back to get the right thing I just set it aside and told the attendant. Having fulfilled my whole shopping list though, I felt confident that I had everything else I needed, the more fool I. So I made my way to work and unpacked the items from my lunch bag.
No breakfast.

I went back out to check in my car to see if it had just fallen out of the bag. It had not. It had, apparently, never made it into the bag. I recalled the fallen item in the freezer section and came to this conclusion: the box that had dropped had been the item I wanted. So I essentially selected the item, put it in my cart, must have missed the cart and dropped it on the floor, picked it up and put it right back on the shelf. So… no breakfast for me. Luckily I had a smoothie I had prepared the night before full of delicious fruit and wonderfulness.

I had, of course, forgotten the straw I use for the smoothie. Not a disaster but it certainly makes less of a mess if I have the straw.

Then, having a couple extra minutes before my shift started, I reached for my Kindle. Yup. You guessed it. I forgot my Kindle at home. I barely go to the grocery store without my Kindle and here I was, sans reading material.

*sigh*

So remember the whole water bottle smelling like burnt plastic story? Wanna know how that turned out? Dying to know where I was going with that, aren’t you? So the final straw was when I went to take a sip of water (after discovering I had no breakfast, no conditioner, no straw and no Kindle) only to discover that my water bottle now tasted like lemony burnt plastic. Now naturally after all this it was hard not to speculate that something might not be entirely right. I blame it on lack of sleep. But then I began to question just about everything I did throughout the day and especially things I saw. To say I was anal retentive about things is a similar understatement to "the ocean is mildly damp." And being that anal retentive in that state brought me about to the level of awareness I usually have when I'm fully rested... which leaves a lot to be desired. I'm reasonably smart but in an absentminded way, so observant isn't really my best thing.

So... that night, when I got into my car to go home and turned on my headlights to see a small rodent of some kind desperately and hilariously (and unsuccessfully) scrambling to get over the curb directly in front of me, I had a "moment." Was I really seeing this or was this another pink frog incident? I mean this poor critter (I'm thinking a vole or a shrew maybe) was really working it, like getting to the other side of that curb was the difference between life and death (which it might have been as far as it was concerned. As deep down as my brain can get I still don't pretend to know how voles think). It was hopping and scrambling, and since it wasn't actually being hurt in any way, I felt perfectly free to laugh my ass off at it because it was, to my addled brain, outrageously funny. A few minutes of laughter later and I decided that I didn't really care whether or not it was real. If my brain was creating its own reality at least it was a funny reality and I can deal with that.

Strangely, despite all of this, I was in oddly good spirits. But then, you know how sometimes stupid people are frequently really really happy? I think that’s why. I was just oblivious to my own discomfort, or too tired to realize how miserable I should be.