Have you ever had a day where you were just out of sync enough that space and time were altered? A day where the natural flow of your universe is a second or two off beat and it disrupts the natural linear relationship of your earthly experience?
April 10th began in an ordinary fashion. We had the usual Wednesday morning family hubbub, showers, breakfast, off to school and work.
By 7:30 AM I was at my clinic desk looking through papers and email. To be honest, I had stepped out of my beaten path slightly and had a morning coffee.
I rarely drink coffee, but this morning I had filled a white Styrofoam coffee cup about 1/8 full with decaffeinated coffee, added 1 tablespoon of caffeinated coffee and a generous amount of sugar and powdered cream.
I sipped on this sweet caramel coffee while I logged onto the web to check our local on-line newspaper.
The Register & Bee stories appeared and the headlines were all vaguely familiar. I pulled up the first article to find that it was the same lead article that I had read at home the night before in my April 9th newsprint copy of the R & B. I clicked back to the R & B main page and found the date in the upper left-hand corner- April 11th.
“Well,” I thought, “A new concept in reporting, yesterday’s news tomorrow.”
“Yesterday’s news tomorrow” annoyed me more than startled me, at first glance. I really did think, at that moment, that time being what it usually is I should have been entitled to news as it was happening today. However, I worked through my morning clinic patients as the appointments were scheduled in 20 minute blocks of sequential appointments.
At noon, I ran to the grocery store. I was just next in the checkout line when the automatic door opened and an elderly lady came tumbling through it. I joined the store manager who ran to her side just as she began to sit up.
“I bumped my head,” She said, and indeed there was a rather large lump emerging from her left brow.
We helped her sit and other than the bump she appeared to be all right.
I said, “I know this is a grocery store, but I am a doctor. Actually, I am a kidney doctor and I know next to nothing about trauma, but I am here to help you.”
She was grateful for my help. It turned out that my most useful skill was my ability to get the local hospital operator to page Ms. Gray’s family physician. I reported to her that I was overseeing Ms. Gray’s medical care in the grocery store doorway and I inquired when she could be seen in his clinic for followup.
I left the grocery store and ran home to put away food and check on the animals. I have 12 chickens who live in the Taj Mahal chicken house in our backyard. I scooted out to feed them and began with my ritual of standing in the chicken yard to break 4 pieces of sliced white bread into small pieces to toss out to the birds. As I stood in the yard tossing bread I looked down to find one hen at my feet desperately leaning over trying to extract her chicken foot from under my lime green rubber garden clogs. I quickly lifted my foot and she scattered away, unhurt, to peck at the breadcrumbs.
“What,” I thought, “Are the odds of that happening?” I have never in the 7 years I’ve had chickens ever stepped on a chicken foot and I would venture never will again.
I left home at 4 PM to pick up our daughter and son in town after school. Our daughter, Emma, had to go to soccer practice. At 4:30 it was sunny, but the weather forecast called for rain, so they moved her soccer practice into the local gym. By 5 PM when I deposited my son at baseball it was raining, so they played baseball outside.
At 7 PM when I picked everyone up for dinner my dry soccer daughter had a spare shirt and pair of sweatpants, but my dripping son had only the wet clothes on his back. To complete my out-of-sync day I went out to dinner with my daughter and my son dressed in my daughter’s clothes, much to his distress.
That night as I lay exhausted in bed at 10 PM I could not fall asleep. A day like this, I supposed, could only be the result of the tablespoon of caffeinated coffee in my 7:30 AM cup which set me just one pace out of sync in time.
Instead of counting sheep I decided to work on a conundrum.
What if I called the Register & Bee and complained, “You had yesterday’s stories on-line.”
“When?” The R & B staff would ask.
“Today,” I would reply.
“On, no,” They would exclaim, “That’s tomorrow.”
“But, they’re yesterday’s stories.”
“When?”
“Today.”
“No, way! That’s tomorrow.”
“But, it’s today.”
“No, tomorrow.”
Ah, the black hole of sleep at last. Can I please get properly oriented in time and space for tomorrow or yesterday or whatever comes next?