I’m convinced that the universe has its own instincts — it senses when we’re approaching a collective overload on one notion or sentiment, and acts to push us the other way; on an individual level, it can keep you aligned with the nebulous greater balance, assuming you’re paying close enough attention. And then, every once in a while, it delivers a nice juicy boot up the ass (resulting in some terrible event that supposedly leaves you saying “That was such a blessing!” in hindsight).

And so it goes on an ordinary morning. Wake up. Start the mental ticker tape of vitally important tasks that need to be accomplished today. Get out of bed. Walk to living room, plop down on couch with a heavy sigh and start typing in a myopic fog. Curse self for not having accomplished more the previous day. Laptop crashes. Curse Hewlett Packard for their consumer-screwing crimes. Curse universe for sabotaging laptop. Yell “Damn it all!” and decide to scrounge for sugary breakfast items and caffeinated beverages. Stand up from couch and–

PAIN, out of nowhere. Piercing, violent pain of the searing-poker-lodged-in-your-spine variety. Pain so bad I swallow air and choke. In a matter of seconds, all the minor-league problems have vanished, and nothing exists except the desperate and immediate need to remove the red-hot brand that’s attached itself to the small of my back.

The floor. I’m now lying on the floor. Given the circumstances, it seems like a good place to be. The Pain is tiptoeing around my coccyx and started shooting darts down my leg. Within minutes, I’ve memorized facts about my environment that I hadn’t noticed in eight months of living there — how many feet the kitchen counter is from the TV, the distance between the couch and the bed, the best place in the room for the paramedics to fit a stretcher if the rest of my body parts decide to join the mutiny.

“Get up!” shouts the myopic part of my brain, impressive in its stubbornness. “You can’t be lying on the floor! There’s work to do! Vitally important tasks! Suck it up!”

“Hospital!” my survival instincts shout back. “Doctors! Tests! Drugs!”

I settle on the last word, and decide it’s my best bet. Drugs! I need pills. Pop enough painkillers and everything will go back to some semblance of normalcy. Thank you, pharmaceutical industry, for your kind indoctrination into the cult of quick fixes.

I make it to my feet — a long, agonizing process resembling those last few steps the wounded gazelle takes before the lions start to feed. The room spinning from pain, I stagger past the kitchen and into the bathroom. Ahh, the bathroom. Bathrooms are safe. Running water, soothing lights – surely everything will get better in the bathroom.

Gasping my full repertoire of curse words, I grab the sink — the hot pokers are traveling now, hitching a ride down my pelvis into my other leg. Dizziness, sweating, and nausea hit — all the things the body does when it’s in sudden, inexplicable agony.

So now I’m on the bathroom floor. In no better shape than I was on the living room floor. Although now there’s a soft bathmat. And drugs! How could I forget the drugs. I’m now in close proximity to a medicine drawer. Without moving from my fetal position, I reach out an arm, pull open the drawer, and start blindly pulling out anything that rattles.

Suddenly, a savior appears: Boyfriend, now awake, steps into the bathroom and stops short near my head. “Uh, you’re lying on the bathroom floor,” he says, offering a doctoral dissertation in the obvious.

“Can’t … move … back … hurts,” I gasp.

“Shit. Are you alright? What do you want me to do?”

“Shoot … me.”

“How bout I call a doctor.”

“Pills – give me pills.”

“Ok, here you go.”

“And water.”

“Sure.”

“And some cereal, so I don’t puke.”

“Ok, it’s coming.”

Exhale. I can breathe – the crisis is being handled, by someone other than me. I’m awash in the relief of no longer being responsible for my own survival. Death has been averted – now on to more pressing matters.

“Hey Boyfriend?” I call. “While you’re out there, do you think you could bring me my laptop?”