Spilt paint

Today at 11 am, after about three hours of prep work, I picked up the can of paint – a gallon, half full – and started walking towards the paint tray. I tripped. The paint splattered my bed the walls the phone the answering machine various pieces of furniture a stunning piece of amethyst and drenched a sarong I had bought in Indonesia and my newly installed bamboo floor. It took one and a half hours to clean everything up, and one sheet and possibly the answering machine suffered a premature death.

I know someone will tell me that in the larger scheme of things this was trivial. But in my Shirley Valentine-sized life it took on greater significance. I know someone will tell me it could have been worse. It could have. I could have slipped in the paint, fallen down the stairwell (which for the past month has been without any sort of guardrail) and possibly suffered a premature death, or met the dire fate a friend keeps warning me about whereby someone she knows fell off his deck because it didn’t have a railing and is now a paraplegic. An asteroid could have hit the house. I know someone will tell me a story about paint that will make mine seem laughable. But you someones, and you know who you are, don't you dare. At the moment, even though it's of no use, I want to cry over spilt paint.