Late night house cleaning.

Once or twice a year (at least twice is probably more like it) I find myself vacuuming the kitchen and dining area of the house in the pre-dawn or late night hours of the day --those times when I least intend to. Yesterday was one of those semi-annual occasions.

About 9:45 last night while on my way to bed for the ten o'clock news, to be followed by a relaxing page or two of reading before weariness claimed my senses, I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Setting a tall empty glass on the little island in front of the fridge, I went in search of ice. (Because of my relationship with water that comes to us through plumbing, I no longer allow refrigerator ice-makers in the house.)

So as I opened the freezer door in search of those little frozen rocks, I was rudely distracted by the glass I'd set on the bar just seconds before. Apparently--without looking at what I was doing--I had carelessly set the glass on the bar. In the second or two it took for me to turn around and open the freezer door, gravity took over and decided to "claim" the glass for, as I discovered, I had set the greater half of the glass over the edge of the bar in some irresistable temptation of the Laws of Gravity.

The next second or two were simultaneously exhilarating and horrific as I watched the glass tumble to the hard tile floor's surface. The sequence went something like this:

1. Glass hits the tile, much to my horror! Without breaking, it bounces - much to my astonishment!
2. Glass hits again, bounces, remains intact! A second bounce! "This absolutely defies everything I was taught in junior college physics class!" I think.
3. Third bounce and still the glass still does NOT break. "This glass is indestructible!" I holler at myself in total disbelief. "Is there still a Ripley's 'Believe it or not'? I'm find me asking myself.
4. Fourth and final bounce, science jumps up and reaffirms itself. The glass shatters into a thousand tiny pieces to my total horror. Dada mutters under his breath to himself, "OH SHIT!"

So the exhilarating part was watching the amazing death defying glass bounce three times on the floor's hard tile without breaking while thinking, "This is absolutely amazing!" The horrific part was knowing what to expect next if the scientific laws of our Universe were still in force. It was that last bounce of the glass that reaffirmed my faith in science, but found me cursing it in horror of the task just created that now was ahead of me. As frozen spectator, the fourth bounce of that glass snapped me back to reality as glass shards of all sizes splattered in every direction across the floors of the kitchen and dining room.

That's when a desperate call to Mrs. Dada incarcerated Dada's Dally's curious editor, Sammy the Dog, in the back half of the house as I decided - begrudgingly - if I was to reclaim the tile floor for Sam from the many hazardous shards of glass glistening up at me from below, 10:00 o'clock at night was an excellent time to vacuum. But once done, it made me appreciate getting to bed even more!

This morning when I awoke and went to make coffee I forgot to wear something on my feet. Walking barefooted into the kitchen showed how much faith I was placing in the late night vacuuming I'd done just hours before. Either that, or I was still asleep and so desperate in my quest of the day's first cup of coffee before I remembered the chance I was taking of finding missed shards from the night before. (Fortunately, as the day progressed, neither Sam, nor I, discovered any glass, leaving me to conclude I may do some of my best housekeeping at the weirdest of hours.)