Close to Nowhere

I read a short story a long time ago about a man whose guardian angel was just a little bit off. I think Stephen King wrote it.

The man who belonged to the guardian angel tripped on a curb and broke his leg. He narrowly missed being hit by a car. He constantly had little mishaps that were almost disasters, but not quite. His angel caused him to trip so he wouldn’t get hit by the car, broken leg instead of broken body perhaps.

I think my angel is a tad offkilter also. Take last Wednesday for instance. It was just one of those days.

I have a tall, insulated glass that I keep full of ice water. I usually have it on my headboard at night, in case I get thirsty. I often get thirsty in the night. The cat knocked it off the headboard and the empty, fortunately for the cat, glass hit me in the forehead and I still have a bruise and knot.

Next morning, I knocked the glass off the table. It wasn’t empty, the lid popped off and a tall glassful of ice water went all over the floor.

I had planned to quilt while I had soup in the crockpot for supper at church. I kept running the needle over intersecting seams and breaking the thread. I did that three or four times. Broke the needle once.

I had to re-thread the needle every time the thread broke. My eyes have gotten older, along with the rest of my body and the incredibly tiny hole in the needle is hard to find. My sewing machine has a needle threader, but naturally, it wasn’t in the mood to work that day.

I’d put the soup on about noon, so it would be hot and delicious when I left for church. (Heidelberg soup, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, Mexican Velveeta and a cream base – it’s so yummy!)

I was so frustrated from breaking thread all afternoon, I got up in a tizzy and went to stir the soup. This was about 3 p.m. or so. I expected the soup to be bubbling away, maybe even ready to taste-test.

It probably would have been, except I’d forgotten to turn the crockpot on.

I hurriedly dumped the soup into a large pot and did turn the stove on. I checked several times. I can’t leave a pot on the stove and walk away. That leads to burned soup when I forget to go back and check on it.

I sat down and then got back up to check the soup again. I knocked my full, tall glass of ice water into the floor and the lid popped off. Again. My living room floor was as clean as possible that day.

I topped the day off getting ready to go to church. The soup was bubbling away, smelling really good. I needed to taste-test it, so I got a small bowl and a ladle and poured a bubbling hot ladle of soup all over my hand, completely missing the bowl.

Yes, I went to church. I kept my hand in cool water for a long time, then loaded that hot, bubbly soup in the car and headed out. I figured if I ever needed to be in church, it surely was that day!