Adventures With Laundry Baskets

It comes as a shock to exactly no one that I am what you might refer to as clumsy.   One of my major downfalls is the seemingly innocuous laundry basket.  This is especially problematic as I do laundry on pretty much a daily basis.  On successive days last week I had the following adventures:

I was carrying a basket filled with clean, folded laundry upstairs.  As I know I have a problem gauging widths with the basket in front of me, I made sure to turn it so that I was holding it lengthwise, thereby eliminating the problem of fitting through doorways.   At the top of the steps, I turned to enter my bedroom.  I knew I'd make it smoothly into the room so I was moving at a fairly good clip.  Turns out that I'd neglected to calculate the need for a larger turning radius with the basket sticking that much further out in front of me.  I realized this when I turned to the left but instead of moving effortlessly into the bedroom, I hit the right side of the door frame with such force that the air exiting my lungs made an OOOOOFing sound loud enough for the children to come check on me.  By the grace of God, I managed to avoid pinballing myself right back down the stairs.  In the midst of all this, I found myself thinking what an extremely effective Heimlich maneuver this would make.  (Sure, you're laughing now, but you'll be thanking me when this little trick saves your mocking, black-hearted life.

The very next day I carried a basket of dirty sheets and towels down the stairs.  Lesson learned, this time I made sure to hold it the regular way.   As I passed by the downstairs bathroom on the way to the washer I decided to grab the hand towel and add it to the load.  I shifted the laundry basket under my left arm and side- stepped into the bathroom to reach for the towel.  My momentum into the bathroom was halted, yet again, by the width of the basket.   Like that claw thingy that Batman throws, the basket had effectively locked me in place.  I stretched out my right arm towards the towel.  No good.  I bent my knees and reached again. So close.  No way was I going to let that son of a bitch basket win.  Using it to my advantage, I let the tightly wedged basket counterbalance me as I made one final lunge towards the towel.  Success!  Suck it, laundry basket!!   Honest to God, I felt a surge of triumph.  At, um, overcoming my own stupidity and lack of spatial ability. 

<sigh>