I'm sitting in a dark room.  The room does not have a light in it, like every other room in this place. There's no reason why this light shouldn't work, apart from the fact that it's my light and it's in my room.  I'm the reason the light doesn't function.
I first read about the unnatural order of things in the Presbyterian Ladies Handbook of 1906.  Four years later I was able to cross-reference the rather graphic material there with a chapter in Happy Homemakers: A Religious Guide to Modern Living from 1872.   However it wasn't until the publication of The American Journal of Interpersonal Relationships in June this year that I was able to correlate the information in the other two books.  Information that suggests everything is not quite as it appears.
It's often been asserted that we influence our surroundings by our moods.  But to suggest this has a physical effect on the world has always been a matter of some dispute.   Just as certain people radiate joy, there are those who radiate something else.  We're all in a state of entropy, but some of us are degrading more rapidly - we may even be degrading others.  The much-loved human touch is fiercely corrosive.  The sweat and weight of our hands can smooth marble or polish brass.  We've seen the damage our grubby, acidic fingers do every time we touch each other or ourselves.  But there are some who have this effect on their environment without the need of touch.  They may do it through words and ideas, and sometimes just being there makes things spoil.  The Ladies Handbook demonstrates this beautifully by listing three different types of people in the world:
The first group comprises the "peacemakers".  Armed with life-affirming platitudes, cute button noses and screamingly sincere auras, they skip along the street arm in arm in wonder.  These people create harmony where they go and their mere presence brings a sense of peace.  It's important to note they're relatively scarce.
The second group is where the bilk of humanity resides.  Homer Simpson is revered as the archetype and worshipped in some circles as a god.   Here people are content, addicted to chocolate or alcoholic pacifiers, and joyously inert.
In the third section there are those who, through no fault of their own, have a tendency to break things.
I belong to this category, but it's been a long, hard journey to get me to this realisation. I have questions it, examined it and found no other solution.  The common denominator in the wanton destruction that takes place around me is me.  I am the epicenter of menace, the focal point of failure.   I have finally accepted the fact that when an object is placed in close proximity to me it will age more rapidly, expire, corrode, self-destruct or have an emotional episode.  It doesn't seem to make much difference what it is: food will spoil, jams will sour and farm machinery will fail.  Silver becomes tarnished, gold turns to lead, watchbands putrefy on my wrist. Computers break down when I touch them.  Toasters explode in dazzlingly surreal displays of light.  Animals seek any avenue to escape from me.  On occasion, when I have been stationary, domesticated beasts have urinated liberally on my lower limbs in order to display their disgust.
To discover where you belong, there's an easy test:  Keep a freshly opened carton of milk nearly by as you work.  If the milk, within half an hour of exposure to you, sours or begins to form a putrid skin, seek help. (For your own peace of mind, try this on a cold day.)  If you can't find any milk, try asking yourself these questions:  Is your TV's remote held together with sticky tape? Does your mobile phone still have an aerial?  Do you have a seemingly insurmountable problem involving unwanted body hair?  Do you think open fires are infinitely more fascinating that human beings?  Do you ever drive by sense of feel?  Have you ever been mistaken for other members of your family by your parents?  Do you have two bags permanently packed and read to leave beneath your eyes?  Do you ever think the reindeer is a dispensable animal? Why can't you be bothered finding the milk? Do you work for Telstra?
If you answered yes to any of the above, you probably belong in the final category. This is nothing to be ashamed of. We're the bacteria of social interaction - we break down the mulch of society and turn it into fertilizer.  We're as essential as negativity.  Without us, people would have nothing with which to compare their happiness. So even if you're a total failure, a black hole of abject misery, don't be concerned, for you fulfil an important role in the grand scheme of unnatural things.

- Paul McDermott
The Australian Magazine  November 20 - 21st 1999