Well, congratulations.

In accordance to tradition I decided to clean my house for Christmas. The full works, washing, dusting, but mainly washing throws, blankets and such to get rid of cat hair. The drain in the laundry room was a bit clogged. No big deal. I'll fix it. Yes. I'll fix it. Three buckets of water later, I try again. How do I manage to make it worse by trying to fix it? Five buckets of water later, it must work. Well it doesn't. I'm cold. I'm wet. The house is still messy and the day is pretty much gone. Let's try again! And this time, I get down on your hands and knees and curse. Turn on the water and whine a little. Stomp around in the puddles, thinking "this could have been fun had it not been so pathetically annoying". While I'm trying to keep a cat off my back, quite literally, I scoop up the water, for the mess I've made is way beyond mopping. Oh no! The mopbucket! Water, water, everywhere water, under the shower, under the washing machine, the bucket floats by. I feel as if I'm in that poem I wrote while sitting in a guest house, the one about flying sofas and tigers.

I...just...can't...get...the...tool...far...enough...in. So I bend, I push, I grunt, I pout, I go back to the cursing. Pull some nasty goo out while I hear drip, trip, stomp, swoosh. Hello cat. A happy cat, in the misery made up from water spills and tiled floors (I should say "Thank you God for giving me tiled floors") I sigh and put the cat on top of the washing machine. I can, yes I can, hear him giggling at me. I go back to scooping water off the floor, feeling my heart sinking lower, but I will be damned to be beaten by a drain. It must work, somehow. My stubborness is mighter than my intelligence. Much mightier. So I struggle more. Try even harder, always with the same result.

I can feel the rest of the house bending in over me, the boxes, the curtains, the dishes in the sink, the piles of laundry that brought me to this in the first place, the burnt out candles, the expired milk, the dried in coffee stains, the bottles I ment to recycle, everything at once and by that I'm close to tears. It's not the drain, it's not the mess in the house, it's not the agony of having to have a nice holiday, it's my own shortcomings and trying to accept that I can't do anything I set my heart to.

I can make sense of abstract problems, but I simply cannot fix a clogged drain. (I can cure cancer, I can climb mountains) I can relate Derrida to Almqvist, but I cannot fix a clogged drain. I can avoid answering the phone for weeks, I can write a story about a lactose intolerant mouse, but I cannot fix a clogged drain. I can memorize all of In i öknen ("He clung to me like the drowning") I can train a cat to sit before dinner, I can train it to fetch, but I cannot fix a clogged drain.

I've been beaten at last. My Akilles heal. Who'd have know it'd take a drain to do it? So congratulations, world, you finally beat me.