I am a pretty big fan of gravity. I appreciate how gravity holds me to the
ground so I don’t float off hopelessly only to get smacked by the next passing airplane. I have had a few minor incidents with
gravity. That time I fell face-first from
my stingray bicycle comes to mind immediately.
And (I don’t know if I can hold gravity wholly responsible) there is
also the song, “Gravity” by John Mayer, which greatly annoys me for some
reason. But, as a whole, gravity is
pretty useful.
So far as friction is concerned, I
have mixed feelings. Friction is pretty
handy when striking a match to start a fire.
It’s great for skidding to a stop, too.
But I seem fighting against friction half the time. Friction is always holding something back.
Yesterday, friction crossed a line
with me.
After digging through the drawer of
the antique hutch in my dining room to find an old cellphone charger, I tried
to slide the door shut again. The door
didn’t wholly jam, but was pretty difficult to push due to the friction of wood
on wood. I opted to kneel down for
better alignment and jiggle the drawer a little as I pushed on it.
Bad idea, that kneeling.
Jiggling, too.
For a couple years now, gravity has
been holding one of that girl’s large pottery pieces on top of the hutch. My jiggling tipped it over. Gravity took over entirely from there.
After you finish reading this, you can
examine the photograph of the shattered pottery I posted below. I have also included a photo of the entire
hutch (taken after I cleaned up the mess) so you can establish some idea of
scale.
As a point of fact, the pottery piece
didn’t break upon landing on the hutch.
It shattered when it dropped directly onto my head.
Yep, that one hurt.
-- Mitchell
Hegman
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