Nine Forms of the Muse

A delivery driver with a cap and clipboard who hands you a package and says it isn't what you ordered but it's all they had.

A pair of glasses you waste hours searching for, only to find them the next morning by stepping on them.

An apparition in a bronze bustier and horned helmet, white wings and sneakers, who every now and then whacks you on the back of the head with a polo mallet.

A tree-root that sticks up from the path just far enough to make you stumble into some poison ivy exclaiming, "What the hell was that?"

A woodpecker that won't stop pecking on your forehead even though you keep shooing it away.

A sleeping monster with orange scales, enormous claws, and long, scary fangs that will chase you if it wakes up.

A machine with an engine that sometimes runs, sometimes doesn't, no matter what you do to it.

A huge black dog that picks you up by the scruff of the neck and shakes you so hard that everything in your pockets - keys, wallet, appointment book - falls out.

A tidal wave that rushes up the beach and into your office.