Trine Blogs: Epic fail

There are times when I’ve thought “epic fail” was my middle name, given to me by thoughtful and caring friends, rather than an expression for stupidity. I feel like I’ve had one of those days weeks months. You know, the ones where your clumsy/unlucky/dumb traits just kick in extra hard. I don’t know why; it’s been like that for a while now for me. Moving abroad for so long has been tougher than I thought it would be. I feel unfocused and unbalanced, and I have the attention span of a hamster on speed – without the wheel. And that means my mind shuts off, and the instincts that should have kicked in have gone on vacation. A long one.

I get so annoyed when that happens, but it’s always completely out of my control. Like last week when I was cooking with friends, and I managed to spurt marinara sauce up under my right arm. That’s right. Into my right armpit. While wearing a white angora cardigan. Those stains are never going to come out; it looks like the pizza monster mauled a bunny. I can’t even explain what happened. One minute I was stirring in the pot, the next my fingers decided to go each their way, lose hold of the spoon and flip it into the air. Splurt.

Or like the first time I went to Wilhelmina Park the other day. It was lovely weather, it had just snowed, and I was in the area to have my bike fixed. I decided to take a short-cut through the park on my way home. There’s a great big tree (or several, really, but never mind) surrounded by a rather tall fence. I saw someone had left two energy drink cans by its roots, and decided to be a good person and fish them out and put them in the trash. Problem was, the fence was too high for me to reach them with my hands, so after much groping about in the snow I finally found a long stick. I managed to get the first one out, but dropped the stick when I bent to pick up the can. No matter, I just found a new one to get the second one out. While fiddling around with frozen fingers and a soggy stick, I felt something dislodge around my shoulder area, and my purse slid neatly down my arm, off my hand, and landed inside the fenced area. Way out of my reach. And it took the stick with it. It took me a few minutes to stop laughing (what else can you do?) and find yet another stick, get my bag, and get the sticky cans to dump them in the trash. Then I hurried home, hoping no one had seen.

And last Friday, I woke up to an infernal ringing on the door. Groggy and in my favourite, fluffy, pink bathrobe I went to open the door and glare at whoever had disturbed my waking-up morning routine. The cutest plumber stood in the doorway, positively glowing in the morning light, and I remembered he was there to fix our shower. That was one of those times I wished I looked like a movie star when I wake up in the morning. Unfortunately, the only movie star I resemble (both in looks and sound) in the morning is Gollum. Ace.

I wish I could say this has just been a particularly bad month, but truth is this kind of stuff happens almost every day. I try to laugh, if only to stay sane. No point in getting down about it when it won’t ever change. But I figure at least it provides my friends and family with an endless source of entertainment, and most people quickly get used to my fumble-fingered-ness, forgetfulness, and that tell-tale “…. oops” that takes up a large part of my life. I think some even kind of like it – but I suspect that’s just because they’re happy it’s not them.

Trine Larsen (23) from Denmark studies Management of Cultural Diversity at Tilburg University and blogs for Univers.