The Unbearable State of Being Dan

It’s because I cut my thumb off that I’ve been taking lots of Vicodin. It’s because I’ve been taking lots of Vicodin that I haven’t been able to go to the bathroom for more than two weeks. It’s because I haven’t been able to go to the bathroom for more than two weeks that Sunday found me sitting on my sister’s upstairs toilet in Oklahoma, clenching my fists, grinding my teeth, determined to end the pain or die in the process. That was when the heavy glass light fixture five feet directly above me decided to let loose its moorings and break itself over my head. Now I have a cartoonish lump on my head and yet another deep gash to add to the deep gash tally.

Of course, the odds of a light fixture breaking free with the aid of no outside force whatsoever and falling at the precise moment my head was under it are so small that no one (especially my sister) believes it actually happened. But zillion-to-one happenings are commonplace in the unbearable state of being Dan. Imagine a horrible occurrence so unlikely as to be literally impossible, and you can bet that it’s happened to me two or three times.