crisis, unavoidable

I think I've already established here that I like toast. But there are other things I like to toast in the toaster, too. Like bagels. Many mornings, I'll toast up a couple bagels from Bagels Forever (one blueberry, one maple cinnamon) while I'm getting ready for work. I butter the blueberry, put some cream cheese on the MC. And then I'm off! Headed to work going Mach 5. And once I'm there, I grab some coffee, take out my bagels ... and that's all she wrote. I'm good to go until lunchtime.

So yesterday, I was pulling my bagel bag out of my messenger bag when something distracted me - I can't even remember what. And the blueberry bagel fell out, onto the floor. My friend Mike, who shares my office at Mad City Hospital, immediately yelled, "Ten-second rule!" And I'm not gonna lie to you people: I thought about it, I really did. One of the bagel halves landed butter-side up; all I had to do was take it to the bathroom, wash it a little, and pat it dry. I was definitely hungry. But honestly, in the winter, there's just too much road salt and sand that we track into the office, that our beleaguered custodians don't quite get all of. So, the bagel ended up in the garbage.

I spent a good part of the rest of the day wondering what I'd done to deserve this misfortune. Was it something from a past life? Had I somehow treated a patient badly? Should I have sent my sister a Christmas card this year? (I was at her house on Christmas, for the love of Kee-rist! Doesn't saying "Merry Xmas!" to someone, to their face, count for anything anymore?) Anyhow, I never really figured it out. But it was just so sudden and unexpected, such a frozen moment, that it seemed impossible that Fate or Karma or Jesus or whoever couldn't have had a hand in it.

A month from now, or more like 6 months or a year from now, I'll probably have forgotten all about that bagel. Maybe ... maybe something unexpectedly good will happen to me tomorrow. Or the day after. You never really know when stuff like that gets balanced out. But I guess that's all I can hope for at this point, that things will indeed get "balanced out."