What follows is not a random rambling of Amazon river-esque meandering through a story with no purpose, a story that pulls you through twists and turns to obfuscate the message.
This tale, unlike the one posted previously, is only based on a true story.
The story of this morning.
While I could say this morning started like every other morning, that would be a lie.
And to start discourse with a lie, with you, my friends, would be uncouth.
Friendship, especially on the internet, has as its foundation, truth and honesty. Perhaps, even oversharing.
That is the bedrock of stable social media, and one I duly uphold at all costs, knowing how even one slight misunderstanding, one glib falsehood, carelessly ejected, could cost me dearly.
A price too steep to pay after the year we’ve just had.
So with the above encompassing the words that follow, here is how I almost ruined 2021.
The eve of the New Year was upon us and through a series of unfortunate incidents and failures in comprehension, drizzled with a dollop or two thousand and twenty of procrastination, of which I can’t really blame myself because I can do no wrong, I spent the better part of 24 hours awake.
And by better part, I mean exactly 24 hours.
From 7 am December 30th to 7 am Dec 31st, which happened to be a workday.
I did sleep from 7 am on the 31st to 9 am on the 31st, which was glorious, and enough to maintain, but not enhance, my beauty.
Now at this point, you curious little Georges may be wondering what would cause an adult human to intentionally do this to himself…
While the specifics don’t matter, it was a choice, borne out of work IT related necessity.
Suffice to say, by 8: 30 pm last night, when I finally had my first meal of 3.5 slices of leftover Hawaiian pizza, its flavour enhanced by the accompanying tall glass of freshly pumped original soda stream Dr Pete, I was exhausted.
The kind of exhausted where one’s eyes are open, but one’s dark, putrid soul is closed, the body shutting down, all systems hibernating.
And so by 10 pm, it was lights out.
For 10 hours before the new day, the new dawn.
The New Year.
2021.
Fresh and ripe, bursting with hope like a plump, juicy mango.
Leaving behind the pit of 2020.
And then it happened.
As soon as it began with such promise, I almost ruined the year ahead.
Groggy from sleep, a solid 3.5 hours more than my usual, I almost cursed this year, almost sullied it with an egregious error from which there would have been no recovery.
My coffee routine is set, the ways of an old grizzled man.
It is a pattern, an ingrained habit…robotic, precise, practised.
A motor engram.
There is no deviation, no wasted steps, no faltering. Ever.
Until today.
The Presse Francaise was set up as usual, the coffee lovingly measured within. The kettle bubbled joyously until its purpose was served, the water allowed to settled then decanted atop the grounds. Those fertile grounds.
Whet.
The scoop of pure crystalline creatine with its single hydrate, from where my inner rage comes, was dispensed with care into my appropriated Ursula mug, ensuring none of the 5g’s escaped into the ether to do untold damage out free in the world, in the free world.
AND THEN IT ALMOST HAPPENED.
An unfathomable error. A mistake. Ooopsie. With an extra O.
One that could have ruined 2021.
I almost put my heaping tablespoon of instant rich and creamy hot chocolate powder, that magic dust which transforms my coffee into something greater than itself – into a mocha – into the French Press instead of my mug.
But not today, ghosts of 2020. Not fucking today.
Disaster averted before damage was done.
Because today is the first of January.
May you all avert the disasters big and small.
Just like I did.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.