My Klutz

LOL Bow Tie o’ the Day and I soooo wish we had been there. Saturday evening, while I was still having Pajama Day, Suzanne drove to Ogden to attend a friend’s 60th birthday party. When she got there, as she stepped up from the road to the driveway, she tripped on the little half-inch-tall lip between the two. CRASH, went the bottle of wine she was carrying to the shindig. FLUMP went the gift bag she held. And Suzanne caught her fall with her face. Her coat got soaked with the wine she fell on. Thank the heavens, none of the broken bottle glass stabbed her. She didn’t do any irreparable harm to herself.

It was a surprise party and the birthday girl was due to arrive any minute. Friends rushed from the house to clean up the debris in the driveway and to scrape up Suzanne before the birthday girl arrived. They all scurried back into the house and their hiding places ASAP, while asking Suzanne how much she’d had to drink already. Not a drop.

But I sooo wish I had been there, for two reasons. First, Suzanne and I are both convinced if I had been with her the debacle wouldn’t have happened. If I had been there, I would have been carrying part of what Suzanne held. She would have been able to concentrate more on walking. And second, if she tripped with me there, I probably would have grabbed her before she hit the concrete OR she would have been able to catch herself by grabbing onto me. While she was at the party, she sent me this picture (without the bow tie), and the following text: “This is what happens when you don’t come with me.” True, that. I am a pretty capable walker.

Okay. There’s a third reason I wish I had been there. I would’ve had a bird’s-eye view of Suzanne’s circus act. Who wouldn’t want to see something like that? Trust me, she thinks it’s funny too (until she looks at her face in the mirror). I am sorry I missed the slapstick moment.

Suzanne knows she is a klutz, and we laugh about her clumsiness episodes regularly. There is a litany of tales I could tell about Suzanne’s lack of grace– from her running into a doorframe pole, to her slipping flat onto her back at the Delta bowling alley, toher tripping on the sidewalk at Thriftway, to her parking one of her car’s tires in a coverless manhole, and her weed-whacking her calf, and so on. It’s a blessing she has a good perspective on her abilities and her lack of abilities. Her unintended antics give us reason to laugh often. So far, she has not caused herself major bodily trauma. I cross my fingers.

Seriously, as amused as we are about Suzanne’s odd mis-haps, I wish she’d leave her extraordinary clumsiness behind. We’re too old for this. She’s gonna break a hip. Of course, then I could put her in Millard Care and Rehab as Mom’s roommate, so they could compare hip woes and talk about me and what a trial I am to be around. I could visit them both at the same time. If those two roomed together, that room would be a true carnival ride. Their visitors would walk out breathless but wanting to go back for another ride, again and again.