Only now can it be told, six days later: I was watching TV last week when I decided to hit the kitchen in a hurry. I was in a slumping, nearly horizontal position on the big blue couch with my legs on the ottoman, so I bolted upright and began my journey. But the material covering the ottoman had been pushed off by Tatyana the night before, and somehow or other the material caught my right foot as I took my first stride. Right away my balance was gone as I began to stagger forward. Before I knew it I was completely off-balance and hurtling toward the dining-room table like George Foreman after that final punch from Muhammud Ali in Zaire. I landed on the right side of the table, causing it to tip over and with it all kinds of stuff — two laptops, a lamp, a coffee cup (shattered), charging wires, pen holders, a mouse pad, a bottle of computer-screen solvent, envelopes. After the table tipped I went with it, of course, and wound up on the floor. No wounds, no bruises, no dents. But Tatyana was watching with fascination and I felt a bit embarassed. Until the moment of impact I hadn’t caused that much domestic wreckage in my entire life.