It was raining cats and dogs this morning. Literally. When I got out of the car to carry Gus, the Wonder-Yorkie, into the groomer's I slipped on the wet sidewalk and plopped myself down. I tried my best to hold onto Gus, especially since he sometimes bolts if he gets loose outside, but he fell like rain the last few inches. Or maybe like a huge chunk of hail (he was okay). I grabbed his fur and lay there, holding onto him and wondering how in the world I was going to get up.
Being an Old, (okay, and yes, very out of shape, thank you for bringing that up) Wife, if I get down on the floor, or in this case the sidewalk, I can't get up without holding onto someone or something. Dennis was in the car but I had fallen right in front of the hood, too close for him to see me laying there flailing about like some lobster in a trap and the windows were rolled up and with the pounding rain I was pretty sure if I yelled loud enough for him to hear me the tornado sirens across the street would go off. There were brick pillars on either side of me, about four feet away and I thought of crawling to one, but I had to hold onto Gus. The one-handed crawling thing wasn't working so well.
Then, here came a car with people in it hurrying to my rescue. I use the term hurrying loosely because the car hurried but when it stopped I saw that the couple in it were even older than I am and the lady was the only one who was able to get out to try to help. At this point Dennis finally noticed that I had gotten out one side of the car and he had never seen me emerge onto the other side and he came out to try to help too. Again, the term hurrying is not really relevant. He did take the dog, though, the lady guided me to the point I could kneel up and all's well that ends well.
It was Deja vu all over again, so to speak, but first you must know about my winter coat. I used to have to walk almost 2/10 of a mile across a huge parking lot to work. (Okay, I'm a wimp, but YOU try walking that far in -54 degree wind-chill!), so when I saw the wonderfully padded full-length coat in a catalogue, I ordered it. The fact that it was purple should be secondary except for the fact that when I wear it with the hood up all my kids say I look like Barney. Whatever! It is extremely warm. And, as it happens, the padding comes in pretty handy too.
I think it was Josh's senior year in high school that I had a winter of winding up on the pavement every week or so. I swear I don't drink, but I'm sure that's what it looked like when I suddenly went down on my backside, not just sitting there but sprawled out flat on my back, while walking across a parking lot. It was too bad that it was the church parking lot. I was wearing the Barney coat. Fortunately I was not hurt because of the padding; unfortunately, the padding made it even harder to haul myself upright. Josh and Jake picked me up and no one from church was rude enough to mention it.
A few weeks later when we were visiting Oklahoma Baptist University to preview it before Josh's application was turned in, there I went, splat onto the parking lot. OBU is an alcohol-free campus. There were looks sent my way. They may have noticed the purple coat. Think Guinness Book of World Records-winning biggest grape Popsicle. Or Barney. I think Josh wavered between picking me up and pretending not to know me. Since he would eventually have to ride home with me, though, he decided to be a gentleman and help me up. We waited awhile before turning in his paperwork.
Christmas Eve, that same year, Josh was working at Chic-Fil-A in Penn Square Mall. Jake, Dennis and I went to pick him up from work and since parking places were non-existent, Dennis pulled over to the curb and I was going to go in to get Josh. He parked very close to the curb. I opened the car door and rolled out like a lapsed AA member and fell once again, this time between the curb and the car. I was stuck. The doors on the street side were blocked by traffic, or so Jake and Dennis said later, and there I lay. No flailing, It was too tight a fit, with the purple coat and all. It did not help that the car was bouncing up and down with somebody laughing hysterically inside. I have to admit I was laughing that hard too so there was really no way in the world I could free myself. I guess I'd still be there if a man from across the mall had not seen me laying there and, full of the Christmas spirit, come across to pull me out. He did not seem to think it was funny and he certainly gave Jake and Dennis a dirty look for letting Barney lay there, humiliated, and having to be rescued by a stranger. I tried to stifle my laughter and look pitiful. They deserved his attitude!
I hope this morning was not the start of another season like that one. I guess I'd better get out the purple coat.
No comments:
Post a Comment