A couple weeks ago I had “one of those days” that easily could have been the reason why Murphy invented his law.
First of all, at 10 o’clock in the morning, I, in my flannel pajamas and hair curlers, was eating cereal when company arrived from New York…three hours early. I had planned, after breakfast, to dust and vacuum so everything would be freshly sparkling for their arrival. Instead, my guests were able to doodle their names in the dust on my coffee table.
After the New York visitors left, the cable repairman arrived. “You have dogs!” he said in an accusing tone when I opened the door. All I could see was his nose, which was poking around the edge of the door frame. “Lock them up in a room or I’m not coming in!”
“But they’re outside in the yard,” I said.
“If you don’t lock them up, I’m leaving,” he said. “I have been terrified of dogs ever since…the incident.”
I was going to suggest that his particular line of work might not be suitable for someone who was so dog-aphobic, but I did as he asked and called my dogs inside, then locked them in the bedroom. I returned to the front door and opened it. The cable guy was hiding on the porch. “You can come in now,” I said.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” He didn’t move.
“The dogs are locked in the bedroom,” I assured him.
Once again, he allowed only his nose to peek around the corner. “Are you positive they can’t open the bedroom door?”
“My dogs aren’t even coordinated enough to walk down the stairs without tripping, so I’m pretty sure they can’t figure out how to turn a doorknob.”
The cable guy finally came inside and checked out the cable box, but the entire time, he kept casting wary glances at the bedroom door. He was beginning to make me feel as if I had two rabid, drooling werewolves locked in there. Heck, even after he left, I still didn’t dare let my dogs out of the bedroom, he’d made me so paranoid.
After dinner that night, I figured that I’d finally be able to sit back and relax. That’s when my husband, who was stretched out in his recliner, casually said, “I have this weird bruise on my stomach that I noticed today. Can you take a look at it?”
I shrugged, wondering what could be so weird about a bruise. “Sure.”
He lifted his shirt to reveal the Queen Mother of all bruises. It was dark purple, nearly black, and was larger than a dinner plate. The scariest part was that as I was looking at it, it continued to grow. I grabbed a ruler and measured it. It was nine inches across...and still growing.
A half-hour later, we walked into the hospital emergency room. The place was so mobbed, there wasn’t a single seat available anywhere. We were greeted by an irate man who loudly told us that he’d been waiting for over two hours, that no one cared if he dropped dead, and that the woman at the admitting desk was a real witch (actually, he used more colorful language than that, but I’m trying to keep this G-rated).
“I think I’m feeling fine now,” my husband whispered to me. “Let’s go home.”
The woman at the admitting desk interrupted and asked us to have a seat so she could get some information. After she found out why we were there, she said, “I’m bumping you up to the top of the list.”
At that point, Mr. Angry in the waiting room got even angrier and started kicking things (like doors and chairs, and perhaps even a shin or two) and shouting about discrimination and contacting the head of the state’s medical board.
“Uh, it’s okay,” my husband said nervously. “I’m in no hurry. Why don’t you take care of that guy first?”
“Oh, I’ll take care of him, all right,” the woman said. “Security is on its way to pay him a little visit.”
We were escorted into an examining room where my husband’s bruise became a tourist attraction, with several doctors, nurses and even some guy who looked like the custodian coming in to look at it. The general comment seemed to be, “Hmmmm.”
At 1:30 that morning, we finally were headed back home. The verdict? That my husband was fine, didn’t need any treatment, and the bruise would fade in about a week or so. I guess the cause of the humongous, hideous thing forever will remain a mystery.
Maybe the two rabid werewolves in our bedroom had something to do with it.
