The Disaster

The Disaster
It began as an ordinary summer Sunday. I awoke at 7:00a.m. to sunny skies and chirping birds. I had a leisurely breakfast cooked by my lovely wife (omelets, toast, coffee), took Cody for a 1-mile run, then walked to the gym, got in a good hour long workout, came home and cut the lawn. All that exercise before 10:30am had me primed for the day.

And then it happened. At approximately 10:45 she jinxed me. She told me I was “her little Disaster.”

After I finished cutting the grass, I decided to water it. As I was spraying down the $80 a piece shrubbery that I replace very week after Cody gives them a good thrashing, Deb told me to get the Miracle Gro lawn and garden food and water the veggie garden. After retrieving it from the shed, I proceeded to pour the blue granules into the easy-to-fill “no-clog” container. Half made it in. The other half fertilized the deck. Deb just looked at me and shook her head.
“Honey… you are a disaster. But you’re my little disaster.”

And that was all she had to say …

She helped me get the rest of the blue stuff into the container, screw on the cap, attach the whole thing to the hose, which of course, I couldn’t do because disasters have Fred Flintstone fingers, and then I started watering again. Five minutes into it, I was convinced that it wasn’t working because the water didn’t look blue. So I unscrewed the cap to investigate the clog in the no-clog container, and accidentally fertilized yet another small chunk of the deck, my poison ivied toe, and about 6 blades of grass as I spilled about ¼ of the container.
Deb laughed, gently took the contraption away from the retard, and once again screwed on the cap and warned me to leave it alone - it was working. I continued. And managed to finish the lawn without any further evidence of my ineptitude.
But, as if fearing that I was being lulled into a false sense of competence, the Evil Forces struck again. Everything else I touched the rest of the day either exploded, spilled, got stuck, smeared on, burnt or broke.
For example:
To ward off the bugs that were harassing my sister all afternoon, I fetched the Citronella liquid and candles in the shed. Luckily, I managed to pour only half of it onto the deck as I was refilling the Tiki torches. (If the deck could rip up one of its own planks and smack me in the head, it would have at this point.)
After dinner, my dad handed me a beer, and as if on cue, I popped the top and was immediately showered with a cold one. In my eyes and everything. The bugs were happy. They love beer-dipped Italians.
“My little disaster…” cooed Deb as she handed me a towel.
Later, as I was showing off the poison ivy rash on my big (now red and pulsating) toe, Karen remarked “Who the fuck gets poison ivy on their big toe? Besides me, because that’s exactly what would happen to me.”
“My little disaster… that’s who.”
An hour or so later, as I was cooking hamburgers on the grill, I dropped about one hot dog, 2/3 of a hamburger and 47 pieces of grilling vegetables into the fire.

“My little disaster… Somebody has to love her – and I guess I was volunteered.”

The day finally ended, and I crawled upstairs to my bed to read. At about midnight, I was sufficiently tired, and decided to go downstairs, brush my teeth and wash the remaining beer from my face. Not wanting to wake Deb, I decided to not turn on the hallway light. I took one step onto the stairs, stepped on Phoebe for the bajillionth time, and fell down the entire flight of stairs. Yes, the entire flight. As I was halfway through my tumbling routine, the banging of my head on the railing reminded me of the fact that this is exactly how and why my grandfather is a quadriplegic. He fell down his stairs 8 years ago, compressed his spine, and has been in the VA hospital ever since. I made it down without breaking anything ... but I have a bruise and a rug burn on my ass and thigh the size of Montana. Yes, my ass is that big.

This morning, as I was in the kitchen at my office, regaling Robyn with my “tail” of woe and what a disaster I was, I reached for a paper towel to dry off my coffee mug, yanked too hard, and sent the roll of paper towels flying across lunch room …

And so it continues.

Posted by LA at June 03, 2002 02:13 PM