Shafted

People tell you that you're going to look back on certain things and laugh. However, the type of events people say this in reference to are not laughing matters.

They are the things that seem like little crises at the time of their occurence -- miniature catastophies that can destroy a day or spoil a mood. They can be absolutely terrible to the person experiencing them, causing brief mental trauma and mild embarassment. And yet, at the same time, these are the kinds of occurences that other people find funny. So in a pitiful attempt to excuse their giggles, they tell you that soon enough, you'll be chortling heartily right alongside them. I think we all know that any future laughter will be insincere and accompanied by a sting of resentment.

But things like this happen randomly every day. Nothing major. Nothing earth shattering. Just vaguely humiliating or wholly inconvenient. In the past few days, I've had a rash of these occurences.

Let's examine last week on Tuesday -- the day I was going home for Thanksgiving break. There I was, standing outside the Golden Bear Cafe, waiting on people to show up for a meeting. Sure, the people never showed up, but that's beside the point. While I was standing there, minding my own business, I happened to look up. I saw a flock of seagulls circling above me. I remembered all those times in elementary school when the silly popular girls used to scream and cover their heads every time the gulls would fly above them, terrified of getting hit by bird excrement. As I stood there on that sunny Tuesday outside the GBC, I chuckled at this memory. I would never be so silly! Birds didn't frighten me!

And that's when I felt a dull thwack on the side of my head -- like someone flinging a spoonful of jelly onto a tile floor or a slug being catapulted into a brick wall. Yes. All those fears that never came to fruition for those silly little second graders had finally come to pass. I had been hit by a flying peice of bird excrement.

It was in my hair. Do you know how disgusting that is? First, there's that sinking feeling. Then there's disbelief. So what do you do? You reach up and touch your head. Surprise! Now you've got fingers covered in nasty avian waste. So I ended up washing that small section of my hair in the sink of the GBC bathroom, using handsoap to wash away the germs and rough paper towels to dry off my poor, embarrassed head. That kind of put a damper on my happiness. No big deal, though. I got over it. My excitement about going home sort of superceded the aggravation.

Still, that doesn't mean it made me feel better to hear from 20 different people that having a bird poop on your head is good luck in some cultures. Not funny. I will laugh at myself in my own time, thank you very much.

To follow up that brilliant preformance, I dropped my student ID card down the elevator shaft earlier today. I didn't even see it happen. At first, all I noticed was a slight and sudden lightness of my lanyard. Then I glanced at my ID case only to see no ID. Seeing there was nothing on the floor of the hallway and that the elevator was totally empty, my eyes alighted on the gaping canyon that is the space between the elevator and the 7th floor. And then I heard the soft pitter patter of a little plastic card tumbling down a metal shaft.

All this happened in a split second. That's why it's interesting that it took me about five minutes of staring at the closed elevator doors in disbelief before I finally processed the situation. Then it was five minutes trying to explain to the nearest janitor what had happened. Then it was fifteen minutes going down to the mail room to report a complaint. Then it was 30-45 minutes to walk down to the CalCard offices and get myself a new card for $25. You see, they couldn't just go get it for me. Oh, no. That costs $150. Who knows why -- it just does.

This is not funny. Sure, I told it to people as a point of unfortunate amusement later on, but that doesn't mean that it was a laughing matter at the time. I suppose the lesson I can take from this is to just go with the flow -- take these things as they come and be thankful that they're small. Be thankful that I can laugh at them later. That's a good way to strap on those rosy shades and move on with your day. So what if a bird defecated on my head? So what if my ID card escaped me? It's all good.

So stop laughing.