Help! Never Mind

Getting older means putting the brakes on an entirely honest life. For example, it would be a mistake to tell anyone that yesterday, reaching to grab something out of my printer, I fell off my chair.

The culprit chair, bought on sale at Office Depot twenty years ago, flew out from under me and rolled against the desk. I landed in a heap, right butt, right elbow, and it hurt, the same way I remember falling off my bike hurting when I was nine.

“What’s that?” my husband yelled from downstairs. “I fell!” I yelled back, and then settled into my mortified self to wait for him to come and help me up, tell me that anyone could fall off such an ancient chair, and maybe get me a cup of tea or a cold beer.

He was watching SVU when I finally made it downstairs. Olivia was questioning a suspect (isn’t she always) and her lower lip was quivering (Olivia’s, not the suspect’s). I don’t think that was what kept him downstairs when there was so obviously a serious thing happening upstairs but everyone loves Olivia and God knows how intricate the SVU plots can be. Take a run upstairs to haul some old lady off the floor and you risk missing twelve plot twists that result in Colonel Mustard getting arrested still holding the lead pipe.

We discussed his lack of concern. But the conversation slowed when Olivia made a breakthrough in her questioning. Then, when she pulled the blinds down in the interrogation room to really zero in on the suspect, I sat down on the couch to watch. It was totally gripping, my bruised butt and elbow notwithstanding.

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Photo by Pedro da Silva on Unsplash