Confessions of a Clumsy Soul (Everyday Edition)

I can always joke around and say that my brain has turned off, but in these situations I truly believe it. Because how is it that my brain lagged, glitched, froze, and then shut down in the span of a couple seconds?

The first incident is regarding medicine.

Now, I take out medicine for my grandfather and sometimes I’ll do it at snail speed while other times I’ll speed up like it’s a competition that needs to be won. And on this particular day, it was the latter. I was busy beating an invisible being in our daily competition when the pills fell on the floor… all of them.

I stared at it. Eyes wide. Mouth slightly open.

And within a second, I crouched down to pick everything up.

Here’s where my brain decided to take a quick interval and left the controls, because the first thing that came out of my mouth was:

“Should I quickly wash them?”

…

…....

………..

Yeah… it became a running joke in the family for a bit where it would end with my face being flushed in embarrassment while still laughing.

In my defence though, when you drop something on the floor, your first instinct is to wash it, right?

RIGHT?!

Now this one was fairly recent, around a couple months ago. I had started my 6th semester in university and was finally asked (ordered, if you ask me… but in a funny way) to bring the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) for our course.

For those who don’t know what the DSM is; it’s a stupidly thick book with all the disorders along with the criteria and risk factors and so on and so forth. Essentially, a manual for disorders.

Makes sense?

Okay. So, here’s what happened. My cousin and I decided on a lovely afternoon to read through some of the disorders. We knew the known ones such as ADHD, OCD, Depression, Anxiety, etc. We wanted to see the disorders we’d never heard about.

And we did… they were interesting.

Especially the ones under the ‘sexual disorders’ section. Don’t ask me why we went there, but we did. We got curious, okay!

So here we are, reading through them and getting horribly confused because how… what? (I am not saying this out of mockery but in genuine confusion because first, we were never taught this and second, we didn’t understand it.)

And during this time, my loud mouth decided to automatically get plugged into a speaker. My cousin stared at me MORTIFIED while I so obliviously repeated the disorders with my bedroom door OPEN!

(Yes, I am getting horrified writing this down.)

And mind you, I am so lost to the point I asked, “Why the hell are you looking at me like that???”

I remained that way until I read the first line… OUT LOUD.

The bedroom door was closed immediately.

This next incident was a day before Ramadan started.

We were in class and all of us decided that we should have one last meal in university before everything closes for Ramadan. Now, here’s the thing, we didn’t particularly plan it so there was the issue of no cash. Luckily for emergencies, my mom had instilled in me to keep cash in my bag at all times and I had a decent amount of money that day.

Us friends decided that we’d pitch in, get whatever, and just have a good meal.

What was the issue then, Aymen?

Oh, I’ll tell you.

When we reached the place (mind you, everywhere had human traffic because we weren’t the only ones who decided to have one final meal), I opened my wallet and there was enough money for a couple candies because the actual money was still in the bag… which I forgot in class…

I found the situation hilarious and burst out laughing. My friends stared at me and the (practically empty) wallet and went like, “I thought you said you had money???”

Yeah… I explained it and ummm… hmmm… that was embarrassing.

And now this lovely final incident is no less either. It’s the kind of incident that would make anyone think: damn, this kid is in uni?

No, because same.

So let’s create the scene.

It’s Ramadan, and we just got done with iftaar. I’m in the kitchen with my mother, grandmother, and father and all I have to do is assort a couple things into boxes and put them in the fridge.

Now, I got 2 boxes from the cupboard and I was the one who opened them, put the food in. All I need to do now is just close them.

Simple enough, right?

My brain didn’t think so.

Because while it was off in wonderland, I was busy trying to slam the box shut with a lid of the wrong size (obviously).

But I didn’t realise and neither did my brain, or my eyes (yes, I had my glasses on), or my hands. All I cared about was trying to get this thing to shut.

My grandmother looked at me and said, “Aymen, what are you doing?”

I told her and she says, “Honey, wrong lid,” and hands me the one with a very obvious size difference.

I sheepishly closed the lid while my dad just stared with this unreadable expression, making me crack a smile.

It’s an everyday experience, honey, don’t worry.

I have sooo many more incidents and I can’t wait to sit down and write them all!!