I Understand How BP Feels

Just now, not eight minutes ago, I spilled coffee on myself. (Normally, when stories like this are told, the time frame is fluid: the other day, last week, lately; but I am being 100% time accurate. This actually just happened. It’s almost like live-blogging, except not at all interesting.)

Usually whenever I spill something on myself—and it happens with alarming regularity—my response is to throw my hands in the air in disgust at my own filth, start scrambling in my immediate vicinity for some soda water, realise that there is in fact very little chance of me finding any soda water in my office/bedroom/car, and anyway is it even soda water or is it tonic water or wait I know it’s bi-carb soda and vinegar no that’s a science experiment volcano oh no the stain is starting to dry maybe I should just spray stain remover on it there’s a bottle in the laundry no wait that’s Febreze I remember last time I did that my shirt smelled like Angela Lansbury’s handbag for a month oh this is ALL JUST TOO HARD. Then I just give up and pretend it isn’t there.

A week or so later, after the shirt has been through a laundry cycle and ended up back in my wardrobe, I’ll go to put it on, realise it has a stain all over the front of it, throw my hands in the air in disgust at my own filth a second time and dismiss the shirt to the bottom of the wardrobe where it will never be seen again. I then vow to go out immediately and buy nineteen bottles of soda water to strategically place about my person* so that next time I’ll be prepared.

This obviously never happens.

Today, however—ten minutes ago, in fact—I decided that things would be different this time. I am wearing a shirt I particularly like and I refused to let it go the way of so many others. I got up out of my desk and sprinted to the bathroom.

Well, I sprinted halfway to the bathroom. Then I smacked my leg into a table which kind of hurt, so I hobbled the rest of the way. It’s not like the table was in my path, so I’m not sure what happened. Clearly my body forgot it was running and decided it wanted to be in a Conga line instead. Step, step, step, kick to the side! This is a strong indicator that I need to exercise more often – one should never forget how to run.

I eventually got to the bathroom and, realising there was still no soda water within reach, I did the Sensible Man Thing and just started aggressively throwing water on myself. Splash splash splash. It was like a sexy bikini carwash scene in there, except with no cars or bikinis, and definitely not sexy. Well, maybe a little.

Soon the stain was gone, and in its place was a giant wet patch. And that’s where the hot air hand dryer comes in handy! Unfortunately, the hot air hand dryer is mounted on the wall at a height conducive to drying hands, so to get the wet part of my shirt (at around chest height) into the blast radius of hot air, I had to stand with my legs apart against the wall and, using the dryer itself for support, arch my back until my chest was angled under the vent.

Now this would normally be the time when approximately twenty-seven people all thunder into the bathroom at once to catch me humping a public facility, but the universe saw fit to give me a pass on this one, and I made it out of the bathroom with both my shirt and my dignity clean and dry.

I couldn’t believe my run of good luck until I got back to my desk and realised that my literal run in with the table on the way to my bathroom had broken the skin and my knee was bleeding.

So now there’s a stain on my pants.

*My sister does this with moisturiser. At all times she has some in her bag, in her bedroom, in her bathroom, when she was in school she had some in her desk – it might seem obsessive, but damn, if the woman doesn’t have the skin of a 22 year old**.
**Mind you, she is a 22 year old.