Over the past weekend, the offices at work got new carpeting. Today (yes, considering it’s Wednesday, I’m not that observant), I realized that two file cabinets got switched around in my cubicle. The shorter edge of my desk used to contain a long file cabinet underneath and the longer edge used to contain a short file cabinet underneath. Logically, when they returned the furniture to the cubicle, they put the shorter file cabinet under the shorter length of desk and the longer file cabinet under the longer edge of the desk. Probably the correct thing to do and all well and good, right? Well, if I was a normal person with a normal sense of space, it would be fine, but since I am a little off, I found that I accidently rammed the toe of my shoe into the place now containing the longer file cabinet not once, not twice, but three times. Yep, it took me three times to register that a longer file cabinet was now in that space and to quite kicking it every time I got up to get coffee. Perhaps, my multiple trips to the coffee pot contributed to the problem. Perhaps, but maybe not.
Why was I getting up so frequently for coffee? Well, I suspect that I was somewhat worried about the sloshing sound coming from the cubicle behind the adjoining cubicle wall. No, really, it was a genuine sloshing sound. The kind I imagine would be generated by someone exposing film in one of those shallow dishes of chemicals or someone soaking a bunion in a bowl of warm water. Yep, that kind of sloshing. I was just hoping it did not slosh under, over, or through to me on the other side of the wall. I guess I could have checked to see what the sound was or even asked, but this makes it more exciting doesn’t it? Perhaps, it was just someone pouring soup from a thermos (although there was no smell of soup drifting through the air). Perhaps, but maybe not.
Well, on one of my return trips with coffee, I was gleefully sipping away, but apparently, I was more like chugging the coffee, because I suddenly found myself choking on it. Not the, “Oh no, I am in danger, I’m choking” kind of choking, but rather the “I’m really pretty stupid for choking on coffee” kind of choking. I should have banged on the cubicle wall for help, knowing Morse code certainly would have come in handy. Perhaps, a coworker would have put down their soup and come rushing to my aid. Perhaps, but maybe not.