Stairs 2, Me 0--and don't even get me started on the elevator

The stairs are headed for a hat trick.

In a veritable Ironman of clutziness, I have now almost died on my own staircase twice. What do you do when your own house wants you dead?

The first time...well, okay...I guess I did have a little something to do with it. I was trying to transport a rolled-up rug twice my height and body weight. Just as I was coming around the rather dangerous corner at the top of the staircase, the stairs magically transformed themselves into a slide and I found myself falling backwards in a kind of olympic back-dive move. I distinctly remember thinking 'Oh. So this is how I die.' But by some miracle, the rug rolled under me and I slid, bobsled-like, down to the safety of the first floor.

Today, in an exciting new riff on falling, I fell up the stairs. Carrying a large mug of steaming coffee and a plate of peanut butter toast. Again, the instigator was my own feet (scheming bastards). But once again, the stairs seized on the moment to maximize damage to myself and all surrounding surfaces. Did you know toast can bounce? It bounces until it lands face-down on the peanut butter side. And then it cements itself to hardwood and/or paint.

Somehow my right foot got caught in the left leg of my pyjamas. How does that even happen? To make matters more mysterious, I also managed to viciously stub 3 toes of the non-tangled foot at exactly the same time, yet gainst all laws of Murphy, my mug of coffee landed on its base after only spilling about half its contents. How sad is it that I see that as a good omen?

Speaking of Omens
Don't you hate it when people use their blogs to recount their dumb, boring dreams in vivid detail? The only thing worse is hearing their dumb, boring dreams recounted in person, when you can't just click away to a more interesting site.

Yeah...so I had this really strange dream last night. It has to mean something, but I try never to venture too far beneath my materialistic exterior, so damned if I can figure it out.

I, along with my husband and a few people I don't know, got onto an elevator in some kind of office building-slash-amusement park ride. We knew we were headed for the basement and there'd be a surprise when the doors opened down there. Then they gave us a clue: it was some kind of quote written on a piece of paper.

Slam! the elevator door closes. Too late, I realize that I know this quote. It's from the movie The Blair Witch Project (shiver...I glance behind me as I write this...it's still creeping me out). As I screech this fact to the others in the elevator, which is going down down down, picking up speed, god how many floors are there in this building? why is this elevator going so fast??? the elevator starts to morph. The walls shake and two more walls pop out of nowhere. The carriage is now hexagonal. We're pooping bricks at this point, but I remain slightly relieved that we haven't gotten to the basement yet. Then the walls morph again. Now the elevator is octagonal. It's getting bigger and bigger, and more doors are appearing on the new walls.

Somehow I know that it's down to a choice on my part: I can will the elevator to stop and face whatever the basement holds, or let the walls continue multiplying forever. With every new door comes some new potential for terror--or salvation.

Okay, I editorialized that last part a little.

Then I woke up, confused and very happy to see the grinning face of my dog, and to feel the soft ebb-and-flow of my husband's sleeping body next to mine.