I try to be normal, truly.

I go to lunch like a normal person. I order normal food. I use normal utensils to cut normal bites. Okay, sometimes they are on the larger, more enthusiastic side, but still...today they were normal.

I do take better than normal people with me, mind you. Today I was treated to lunch by Miss Blee for my birthday (that's right...it's June and my b-day is still rockin'!). I promised to use her code name because of where the rest of this story goes. I am committed to the protection of the innocent. Even though she laughed when it happened.

I ordered a perfectly normal, lovely lunch of a petite sirloin, potato and broccoli. See how normal?

I cut a few bites of broccoli and chomp-chomp and all is well. What a nice lunch. What enjoyable company. Tra la la la la.

I go to cut another bite. Slight slip of the knife and fork. No worries; I still have all my fingers. And Blee still has all of hers.

So, slip of knife and fork...the bite of broccoli and the stalk I was cutting it from are still on the plate, but I did see something fly at me.

I glance at the napkin in my lap and see a bitty nubbin of broccoli which I clearly launched off my plate. Whew! It's in my lap! Safe!

But I am me, so I quickly think, "Not so fast, Sluss. Look down again." This time I glance at my shirt. Because if food does not land there, I can pretty much guarantee that it at least caromed off there. Yep. We have a winner.

Not only did the broccoli tidbit, which had bumped into the sightly oily sauce that was on my plate, smack me in the shirt, but it smacked me on the right side. Kind of far right. A significant, dark little circle strategically located on the most pronounced part of my right side.

Yes...I gave myself a "dot" right there. For Pete's sake. It was abundantly obvious, too. Blee chuckled heartily and recommend that I carry my purse on the right side as we left the restaurant. And as, Jennifer said when I stopped at her desk when I got back to the office, "Ha haa haa! Wow. I can't not look at it!"

Yep. I launched food off my plate and gave myself what I want to call a broccoli nipple. But Blee said it was too horrible to say. So I can't say it.

But now you know why she wanted her code name used in here. Jennifer and Bonni, though, I think are quite proud of me :)

And how did I manage the rest of the afternoon in the office, you ask? I keep a scarf in my office in case I feel chilly. Turns out it can also function as a fashionable drape across that third...um...dot.

In the meantime, my dreams of achieving a normal life will linger on...