Sometimes I lose all control of my muscles. Well, let me clarify that-- I lose control of my major muscles that control physical activity; the bladder and bowel control usually stays under control. Usually.

Anyway, the other night as I was driving I was drinking a soda I'd gotten at dinner. A cup with ice, a straw and a plastic lid. I was going about 70 on a freeway, in the dark, when without warning or reason my hand just opened up and I dropped my soda all over my leg, the floor of my car...everywhere. When I got home, the floor mat was dripping with diet coke and ice, and I managed to drip it through the house from the front door to the back door as I rushed it to the patio so I could hose it out. I guess my brain muscle didn't work well enough to tell me to just toss it over the fence into the backyard, rather than carry it through the house like a jackass.

In another instance, I was about to put back Malcolm's can of dog food when a weird thing happened. I guess I was holding it mostly by the lid, and maybe it slipped because of that. The more likely situation was I just dropped it. The can had maybe another 1/2 of wet dog food in it, so the dog food splattered all over the floor. Two big dogs raced over immediately and helped me clean up the mess. (The little one never saw or heard it, let alone have time to beat the other dogs over to the scene of the mess and get a few licks in) I cleaned the floor, threw away the can, and thought nothing more of it except that I was a spazz and I didn't know why I just let go of the dog food can like that. But that's where the weird part comes in.

A week or so later, Greg asked me what the brown substance on the ceiling in the kitchen was. I had no idea. It looked like a splatter of gravy. And that's when I realized that the dog food I'd dropped had managed to get up on the ceiling. I don't know how it happened; I really don't understand how it COULD have happened. There wasn't any dog food on the wall, and I didn't get any on me...unless I did have dog food in my hair or something and I went to work like nothing was wrong but everyone around me was wondering why I smelled like rotting meat in savory gravy. So how the hell does a splatter of dog food go straight up and stick to the ceiling? I guess I'll never know. I did get up on the stepladder and wash it off, though. So at least I cleaned up my own mess, albeit several days after the fact. NOTE: I really hate wet dog food. I wish Malc still had strong enough teeth to eat the dry stuff like a civilized dog.

I also regularly hit my own skull into my car's door frame when I get in and out of the car. I somehow misjudge the distance I need to get my fat German head into the car, and whack myself upside the head. I'll be so anxious to get out of the car that sometimes my legs will make me stand up before I am ready so I hit the other side of my head as I get out. I'll do this most often in our own carport, which is good because it means fewer people have seen me do it, but I have also done it at the gas station, at work, and other public places. It sucks.

One that cracked me up (yes, I amuse myself from time to time, 'tis true) was when I was brushing my teeth and totally missed my own mouth, and pushed the foamy brush right into my cheek. I did it hard, too! That's what was funny to me. It was like my hand was temporarily possessed of retard strength. I wouldn't need that kind of force to brush my teeth; so I don't get why my hand put that kind of force out there just so I could hit myself in the face like that.

And finally, I am a kicker. I involuntarily kick my poor husband when we are sleeping. He says as I fall asleep, my legs just start getting violent. They jerk out and thrash around like I'm in a sleeping-mosh pit. I wish I could control this, because I really, really, really do not want to kick Greg. I love that guy. He's pretty cool. Kicking him is pretty much nowhere on the list of nice things I would like to do for him.

Once in awhile I do it while I am awake, too. I know one time I was sitting here at work, feeling kind of stressed out, and my foot shot out and I kicked the cubicle wall under my desk hard enough to make my cube-mate on the other side of the wall ask what was going on over there, and was I OK. I lied and said I dropped something because I didn't want to just say "I kicked the wall because I can't control my limbs."

Oh, wait, I just remembered one more dumb lack-of-control thing I did. One time when I was getting ready to dye my hair (I am a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to hair color) and I opened up the little bottle of dye and before I could stop myself, I lifted it up to my nose and took a deep sniff of it. I smelled HAIR DYE. Needless to say, that shit burned. You do NOT want to take a big pull on some strong chemical hair dye fumes, trust me. I started crying and yelling and when I told Trish what I did, she laughed, and then looked at me with a hint of incredulous wonder and asked, "Why would you do THAT?!" And all I could say was, "I don't know! It just happened!" I'm not kidding. It really did just happen. No explanation. To this day, I don't get it. And I pray I don't 'just do that' again.

I feel sad, like George Michael Bluth, when I think of my lack of grace and basic motor control. Cue the Charlie Brown sad music so I can wallow in this "poor me" feeling a little more!