I hold the world record. There is no one in this world as clumsy as I am. One night, at dinner in a fine restaurant, I swung my right hand and knocked over a full glass of wine onto the person who was seated on my right, who jumped to get out of the way of the wave of wine that was splashing at her. “Oops,” I said, and swung around for a napkin, and knocked over a glass of wine with my left hand onto the person seated on my left. Judy and I proceeded to tell our wet guests the story of our Chevy Chase adventure (reprinted from July 13, 2005).
I almost broke my damn fool neck last Saturday night. It was hilarious. My wife, the beautiful Judy Licht, and I were rushing to attend a dinner party. Judy was sitting in our convertible waiting for me.
I was rushing out the front door when my pants cuff got caught on the heel of my shoe and I was propelled out the door with incredible force. I stumbled and fell headfirst down five stone steps. I put my arms out and my wrists hit the top step and I tumbled head over heels—my head miraculously missed each sharp stone step, which would have surely fractured my skull. The rest of my body hit each step one step at a time. My shoe came off and just missed hitting me in the face. I landed under a hydrangea bush with my head resting on the bottom stone step.
I felt my head to see if I was bleeding. I was sure, with the force of the fall, that I had broken a bone. I worried about my hips and back. I felt a burning pain in my knee but that was really the only pain I felt. I couldn’t get up and from my perch under the bush I could see Judy across the lawn a hundred feet away sitting in the passenger seat of the car.
“Judy,” I said. “I fell.” Judy, hearing my voice, but not hearing what I said, replied in a singsong voice. “I’M SITTING IN THE CAR.” The singsong voice really pissed me off.
This is the part where I’m going to say something that women are going to think is sexist. (Here’s the disclaimer) Ladies, I’m not talking about you and your spouse here, I’m only talking about Judy and myself. Men, pay no attention to my disclaimer, you know what I mean.
Nine or 10 times in our 28-year marriage, Judy has finished dressing first and has actually had to wait for me. In all of our time together she has waited for a total of one hour for me to finish dressing. I have waited about a year and a half for her to finish.
How many times have I heard: “Should I wear this earring or this earring?”
“But Judy, they look alike. We’re late.”
“No, no, this hoop is a tiny bit larger than this hoop.”
How many times have I heard, “How do you like how my hair looks?” How many times have I said, “Your hair looks great, but we’re late.”
“You didn’t even look at my hair”
“That’s because I remember what your hair looks like. We’re late.”
So now here I am lying under this bush and I can’t get her attention because she is so satisfied since this is one of those rare times in our marriage when she was ready before me. I tried again. “Judy I fell, I can’t get up.” Once again the self-satisfied, ‘I’MMMMM SITTINGGGG IN THE CAAAAAAR.”
Now I was getting desperate. “JUDY,” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “I FELL! I CAN’T GET UP.” She heard that. She turned and spotted me lying under the bush. “OHMYGOD,” she screamed and jumped out of the car. “HOLD ON, I’M COMING,” she screamed.
There are three stone steps leading from my parking area to the lawn. Judy took the first two steps flawlessly. Her high heels caught on the final step and with a scream she pitched forward and fell on her face. She lay there on her stomach unable to get up.
You must get the picture we both saw as we looked across the lawn at each other. I am lying under a bush on my back and I can’t get up. A hundred feet away, my wife, the beautiful Judy Licht, is stretched out on her stomach, unable to get up. Seconds went by as we stared across the lawn at each other.
Then we started to laugh. We couldn’t stop laughing. It was the longest and hardest either of us ever laughed. After a while we both managed to get up. We were still laughing. My left knee was scraped and bleeding. Judy’s left knee was scraped and bleeding. Her favorite pair of pants were torn and ruined.
We limped into the house and took turns spraying an antiseptic saline solution on our bleeding knees. It burned and hurt like hell but both of us couldn’t stop laughing. Looking past the pain—and laughing.
I guess that’s what marriage is all about.
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