Space invader

One of the fundamental principles of physics is that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. One of the fundamental principles of the Kyknoord household is that my morning routine remains fixed. Unfortunately, my wife’s early morning preparations are anything but routine and all attempts to describe them in coherent terms would reduce a hardened chaos theorist to tears. This means that every so often, these two principles fall foul of one another and contrive to make me late for work.

Consequently, there are times (like this morning) when my wife manages to be exactly where I want be. At all times. Without exception. This wouldn’t be too difficult to achieve if it was planned, but it wasn’t. She managed it by means of a series of seemingly random oscillations between the bathroom and the kitchen. I say ‘seemingly random’, because her activities were utterly unconnected with anything I was doing, except in the spacial sense, of course. To illustrate: while I was trying to shave, my dear spouse desperately needed to check if the towels were damp or not. My attempts to retrieve the cereal were thwarted by Mrs Kyknoord’s urgent desire to find a pot to make soup in (not just any old pot – it had to be the right pot). And so forth.

An interesting outcome of our impromptu domestic pas de deux is that she was equally annoyed with me for obstructing her progress. Inadvertent revenge is just as sweet as the regular variety.