Other Side of the Mirror: Meet the president of the Klutz Klub

Have you ever been a klutz? What used to be called a clumsy oaf, sad sack, Gerald Ford, dummy, somebody who was always tripping over things, dropping bricks, making a right mess of things when everyone was looking?
Join the club.
I am president and treasurer, office boy and cleaner of the Klutz Klub.
A good klutz doesn’t work at it. Things just happen to him. There he is sitting at an official luncheon when the coffee carafe deliberately and wilfully collides with his innocent elbow and falls on its side, sending a brown puddle streaming toward the Chief Guest.
The kultz sits frozen, cynosure of every jaundiced “how could you” eye, helpless victim of the inanimate conspiracy. The boss has this “see you in office” expression and everyone pretends they don’t know you, I mean at the Chief Guest himself.
And everyone else says no problem, don’t worry, it’s alright, which are particularly silly things to say since with the Chief Guest’s trouser’s sopping wet, it is a problem, it isn’ t alright and yes, you are worried there goes the good impression you’re working on.
Possible now that Roy, whom you cannot stand, the little ingratiating twit that he is, might get that plum assignment to Switzerland.
A klutz will never spill a glass of anything when he is dining alone at home. Things will be rocksteady then. But give him an audience and the more important it is the more spectacular the confrontation. Sit next to a klutz on a flight and you will know what I mean.
Klutzes are wary of everything that is ornamental or decorative. If they so much as breathe near a porcelain piece in someone’ s house or touch a cut glass vase, the damn things disintegrate. They borrow a book and it falls apart at the spine. They use someone’ s gadget and it jams up.
I once said lovely painting to a friend and a frame dutifully came crashing down. He still thinks I touched it. That’s the problem, no one believes us when we say we are the victims, not the catalysts to catastrophe.
Another friend of mine who is a black belt in the klutz business crushed a cigarette in an ornate antique ashtray and split the carved receptacle into two. Scientifically, the sudden heat had disturbed the molecular balance-whatever. The scientific balance cut little ice with the hostess who was shattered along with her cutglass.But my buddy knows better, the ashtray had planned the whole thing.
It intended to disintegrate. He is a full dues paid member of KK.
Items of food get their biggest kicks scoring against the tribe. Fried food will drip.
Sandwiches will crack up on lifting. Cake slices will crumble in the hand. Kebabs will tumble off the skewer and oil and curry stains will miraculously leap off the plate and smear themselves onto pristine cushions and carpets and upholstery just to get at you.
Klutzes open doors and find the handle has come off they press the “on” switch on a host’s TV and it short circuits. They borrow a racket to play the end game and it splinters into two.
The most hurtful part of being a klutz is that even things you have bought and paid for are inimical.. Buttons will “pop” as you leave for important function. Microphones will whine when it’s your turn to speak. The DVD movie will freeze in the middle of a movie. Gas cylinders will dry up on Fridays. It is your computer that will not start up, your “save” that won’t save, your e-mail that will block up, your screen that will go bust.
Go for a bargain and guess who ends up with egg on his face.
Shoelaces snap, soles flap, safety pins disappear along with keys, pens, nailcutters (my kingdom for one when 1 need it) and curtain rods fall on your head.
The car is a whole new game. Borrow a friend’s car and it will overheat and bust a gasket. Explain it to him. The air conditioning will collapse. The radars will all go onto super-slow and snap you.
You want more? Nails bend. Superglue won’t stick what you want to stick but will generously spread every where else. Bottle tops will not follow the arrow and tin cutters learn to leer up at you as you sweat and struggle. When you’re traveling your cologne will leak, the paste will squish and the shirt collar will fr.ay much the same way the end of the tie will curl up like a potato wafer and when you iron it will burn a russet brown andstill stay curled.
But for the klutz the big mystery is where do all the one of a pair of socks he loses get to?
There must be millions of one sock, like unmarried swains, somewhere in the universe looking for a partner.