I Can Explain

“Oh, yeah, Mother, I’d be happy to take the car to the jewelry store so Gordon can fix your watch!”  It’s a sunny day and all’s right with the world. Alone behind the steering wheel, using Mother’s keys, the ones on the heart-shaped keyring, I was on a mission of mercy.  I got to drive, by myself, downtown. The radio was rocking with tunes from KJWH on my radio dial in Camden, the keys jingled in time. The next time I thought of the watch was at the top of the hill when I looked into my lap and realized I did not have the watch. Short story: it lay bruised and broken on the road, face cracked, additional injury to the original reason I was taking it to Gordon.

But that wasn’t the first time a bad end came to something that did not belong to me. Or, I might add, the last time. The first time I remember abject irresponsibility for which I felt extreme guilt was age 4, as in kindergarten-age. 

“Oh, yes, please Mother, let me wear the little garnet birthstone ring to Miss Lila’s.”  And she did.  And I lost it playing on the huge (not really) hillside at Miss Lila Newcomb’s kindergarten. It was positioned nicely on my finger and I admired it. I was running up and down the hill with others, and then it vanished, probably abducted by aliens. My little 4 year old eyes looked and looked. We searched for days, and then weeks, and then months, but never found it. While Gordon could fix the watch, nothing could replace the little garnet birthstone ring.

None of these events can compare, however, to a fairly recent, noteworthy experience of breaking something that did not belong to me.  I broke the cable box.  Or, drove over it.  Backed over it, actually.  During the World Series. 

Men poured from their respective houses to see what Act of God had stricken television coverage for the baseball game.  I stood beside the decapitated green rectangle with its guts hanging out, stood there agape, in disbelief. How could the driveway at my friend’s house have become curved while I was inside? I know I drove straight into her driveway, so I backed straight out …straight over the cable box.

It was not the final game and the phone lines were not destroyed nor the radio waves, so after much ado about plenty, the Cable Guys were called and the men scheduled emergency service for the next week, prior to the next Series game.

So I live to wreak havoc another day, like when I hung Marvin’s 10-pound mounted fish on our office wall in Bartlett.  When it fell off the wall, push pins were discovered. I’d used a humongous nail, but did not hammer it into a stud. A loud thud had summoned me down the hall and I peeked cautiously into each room. I stopped short, looking into the office. 

Charlie with a Re-do

“Oh, no!” Picture the wallboard ripped as the weight of the fish and its wood mount carried the trophy and the nail downward. Witness my horror as Charlie lay face down on the carpeted floor, green and awkward in his chipped state. Notice also six multi-colored push pins in askew alignment on the wall, smiling at my most recent involvement with breaking something that belonged to someone else.