Can't see the foreshadow for the trees
I've been listening to books on CD right before work, and reading Terry Pratchett right before bed, and sometimes, every once in a while, I expect some kind of literary outcome when I really probably shouldn't. There are very few times that literary devices really show up in real life. I mean, onomatopoeia, sure. And certainly you'll see some alliteration around, although I'm not convinced that most of it is on purpose. And yes, if a dude is born with two left feet, you can be certain that there will be a media circus at his first junior high dance, senior prom, wedding reception, and contestantship on So You Think You Can Dance, waiting for him to either dance well or not dance well, all for the fulfillment of a timeworn cliche. But those are exceptions, and not the rule.
In real life, instances of foreshadowing and story arcs and poetic justice are few and far between. And in a way, that's too bad. Life would be easier if I knew I could get endless rewards simply by whining, "I'll never have a lucky day again."
Today, however, I started to have a sense of foreboding. Foreshadowing foreboding. I bent over to tie my shoe before going into work and my shoelace snapped. I left my wallet in my other pants. And I knew that my morning would be largely concerned with using an extremely sharp knife to cut posters that take a lot of time and effort to print.
I spent my entire morning in fear that I would trip over my broken shoelace onto my extremely sharp knife and that I'd have no way to pay the copay so the hospital would turn me away and I would have to wrap my wounds in posters and reprint them all over again.
I got through the day without any shoelace/knife/walletless circumstances, though, which just goes to show that there was no reason to worry about it after all.
And now, I know that nothing could possibly go wrong.
