(Thanks Gerry!)
Archive for April, 2010
The Coolest Tuna Casserole Ever
Apr
19
2010
Some conversations start out innocently but then, if you are really listening, they catch you by surprise…
My wife called me at work late this afternoon. “What are you doing?” she asked. Turning on the charm, I replied, “Talking on the phone with the coolest person I’ve ever met. What are you doing?” “Making a tuna casserole.”
Now, I wasn’t really fishing for a compliment. Thank God the casserole was delicious, or else I just might have been insulted.
Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’
Apr
06
2010
“Did those curtains always look that way?” she said.
“Yes”, I said, “They are pinned in place, there’s no way they’ve moved.”
“I don’t think so”, she insisted, “I don’t remember them looking like that.”
You see, she had taken down the sheers behind the drapes to wash them. The weather has turned the corner from Winter to Spring and it was sunny, warm day ripe for Spring cleaning. Now that the sheers had been cleaned and re-hung, my darling wife believed that somehow the drapes had shifted out of position and the rolled pleats were now just a droopy ream of cloth. So, to appease her curiosity, I got up from my chair and walked over to show her that there was no way that the curtains moved. I tugged on one side… no movement. All appeared to be well. I walked across the room and stepped behind my comfy chair and tugged on the drapes from that angle. No movement.
As I tried to maneuver back from behind the chair playfully gloated, “See? I told you s…..”
I never finished my sentence. My right foot hooked into the cable of my laptop that was on the floor beside the chair. Instinctively, I tried to catch myself, lurching my left foot forward. Well, my left foot hooked the underside of my ottoman (that’s “humpty” to my Newfoundland compatriots) and tipped it over, effectively tripping me again. With both of my feet coming to a full stop while the rest of my 230 pound torso obeyed Newton’s laws of momentum, I started tumbling into the rest of the living room furniture. In slow motion, I tried to stop myself by reaching out to the arm of the chair. Missed. Then my last hope, the arm of the couch. Another narrow miss followed by a solid THUD as my right bicep came up solid against one of the coffee tables. By solid, I mean solid wood furniture held to the hardwood floor by rubber grips intended to keep the table securely in place. The table skidded forward and the lamp went crashing to the floor.
The next sound I heard was my own voice, “F#$%, F@*&!”, followed melodically by my wife’s voice, weakly snorting back laughter, “Are you alright?”
The picture shows the most colourful bruise I’ve ever had since my brother sent a wrist shot hockey ball directly into my right eye socket 25 years ago. If my camera could photograph my ego, I’m sure the colours would be much more dramatic.
Did the curtains move? No. Did I tear them down while I was falling? No again. Are they still hanging on the windows? Miraculously, yes.
