Monday at work I kicked my shoe off into the wall, leaving a rather noticeable divot. Let me give you some background on this one, so it doesn't sound stupid. Deal is, I was attempting to kick a wadded up piece of paper off the wall and into the wastebasket, ricochet-style. The wall was at quite a distance, so I had to do my power kick. At this point my shoe separated from my foot at a speed that can safely be described as mach 3.

Spectacularly unsuccessful, yes. But I also learned something. I learned that a considerable amount of damage can be inflicted by someone with ostensibly full control of all motor functions, which led to Musing #1 below. What good is an experience if it does not give rise to new musings?

Musing #1 What if you had a disease where one of the symptoms was lack of muscle control? One of the immediate downsides I can see is that you probably wouldn't want to walk through Walmart or other low-income neighborhoods, as these areas are often associated with gang life and poorly-planned pregnancies. If your arms were spazzing out all the time, you might throw inadvertent gang signs, and they would likely be the wrong ones, odds are. If so, see you on the other side, because now you have bullet holes in your lungs. Worse still, when some gang member steps to you, you can't even take it back–you're just flailing around flashing signs that are making his blood boil. It would be like "no uggh...urgh..I'm not a Crip, I swear (throws perfect Crip sign) ow! stop shooting me!" and so on. If you think a hard core rider like that will go easy on you because you're disabled, think again. He didn't get to be a gang member by giving disabled people a free pass.

No, the only conceivable option is to join 5 or 6 gangs at once to avoid the possibility of getting shot. I think that would work.

After that thought, I got on a roll and started to muse without limits or regard for social constraints. For example:

Musing #2 What if you were an Iraqee with only a small transistor radio, and no dial-up internet. Then let's say your radio cuts out in the middle of the latest news report, so all you hear is the newsman saying "There are apparently going to be no... bombings and death from now on in Iraq", but really he was saying "There are apparently going to to be no-thing but bombings and death from now on in Iraq." Talk about getting your hopes up for no reason. I think there's a lesson there about not counting your chickens until they hatch. And verify all news reports.

Musing #3 What if you were a single mother and you were scheduled to have dinner with the Dalai Lama on a mild summer evening. That would be interesting in itself, but there's more. What if by coincidence, that night was also your baby sitter's prom night. No one cancels on the Lama, so you try to make the best of it. And that’s a good call because maybe chilling out in a state of Nirvana would help you with your muscle control problems, if applicable.

Anyway, then your baby starts to cry. What now? Well, I didn’t come up with a good solution. It would be a very uncomfortable situation, I can tell you that much.

#4 Now for my grand finale musing: What if the entire earth was just a speck of dust on some giant’s shoe? No one’s thought of that before, so boom–more inventive thinking. If you have any musings of your own that are helpful and productive, feel free to share them. On the other hand, if all you can think of are references to wars or gang life, you can keep those to yourself. Show some class. Thanks!