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One of my two drama queens was on the line:

...."and to make it all worse, my cleaning lady has left me! She left because she is getting married! Can you imagine? Not a word of warning! I didn't even know she was seeing someone! We used to be so friendly, she should have told me! Now I need someone to show me how to work the washing machine! My sister-in-law is in the hospital but thank God we are not on speaking terms so I don't have to visit her! Sam is still in China, he doesn't phone and his cell doesn't react. I am telling you, everything bad is happening to me this week, I can't find my silver necklace and..."

I had fought my usual change-of-the weather headache the whole day and now Claire was making it worse. So much worse that I blindly approached my medicine shelf to pick out and swallow one more headache pill. Pressing my cordless phone between shoulder and cheek, I continued listening to Claire's bad week. I swallowed the pill with some water and settled down in my favorite armchair waiting for the headache to pass.

It didn't. In the contrary, I suddenly started to feel worse, drowsy and dog-tired, and looking more closely at the small box of pills from which I had removed my headache pill, I noticed that those pills were not against headaches but against. . .insomnia. In fact for the worst kind of insomnia - pills which I take as a last resort when no boring TV, or boring book or a boring phone conversation helps to tire me out and I walk around my home until the early hours of the morning when sleep is as remote as judgment day. Judgment day may even be less remote.

Anyway, I don't remember what happened next, because the pill hit me like a blow on the head.

Of course I can't recall the rest of Clare's hard luck story and I don't even remember how and when the phone got back on its cradle.

About two hours later someone shook me gently and then not quite gently.

"What's the matter with you?" screamed my next door neighbor, "you don't answer your phone, your TV is on, your door is wide open, and I can't get you awake! You lie on your bed and you're out like a light!! What's going on? I didn't know whether to call the doctor or the police!!! You could have been kidnapped!!!" (Now who would think of that?)

I slowly fought my way back into the real world and calmed my frightened friend down explaining the accident with the pill.

Of course, as it was to be expected, I had to take a sleeping pill again at one o'clock in the morning because the night had become day and sleep wouldn't come.

An electric can opener which had served me faithfully for decades finally gave up its ghost. I always went through a struggle trying to open a can and I mostly had to rely on someone to help me. Then one day my 13-year old son appeared with this magic instrument and handed it to me with the not-exactly-flattering words: "Even an idiot can open a can with this thing!'

I was so happy with my new gadget that I forgot to say my usual:

"Watch how you speak to your mother!"

Anyway this cherished can opener is now dead and I am kind of embarrassed to call help. I walked through many stores trying to find a new one but they don't have them anymore. So I finally decided to buy a regular one which is operated manually. Maybe others can, but I stood there with my new can opener in hand, totally frustrated looking at a can which would not open. Now, and after some extended research I finally know why.

It seems that these can openers are made for right-handed people and I, although in many cases ambi-dexterous, am strictly left-handed in the case of can opening. And it's not only the cans. I always get entangled in the wire when ironing because irons are also made for "normal" people, only. Furthermore, when dining in company I always nudge the person on my left, because I eat with my left hand. Thinking that I share this fate with some interesting people like, for instance, Leonardo Da Vinci, offers little comfort, frankly.

So let's have some support from other left-handers!

Lucca