My Pain, Her Pleasure

Admittedly, I'm a clumsy person. I am consistently bumping into things, stubbing my toes and inflicting spontaneous pain onto my unsuspecting body. The worst thing about these mishaps is that they often come right out of left field. For instance, I can vaguely remember this one time where I was getting into my car and cracked my chin on the top of the door frame. Bracing myself with both hands on the roof of the car, I wobbled on my feet wondering what the hell just happened. As things slowly began to come back into focus, I realized that I had been sucker-punched by my own car.. I was actually afraid to drive the damn thing for a while. I felt like I owned "Christine" from the old Stephen King movie.

Perhaps the worst thing about all of my mishaps is that Tina finds them absolutely hilarious. The more pain I inflict on myself, the harder she laughs. I could be writhing on the floor in excruciating pain while Tina will be doubled over with laughter. It's like I'm her personal circus-clown.

Tina will often take her shoes off and leave them right in the middle of our foyer. When I come home from a late day at work (which is pretty much every day), I'll enter the dimly lit area with a backpack in one hand and something else in the other. I usually make it about two steps before I trip over the shoe-du-jour and make my quick journey to the hardwood floor. As I slowly make my way back onto my feet, I hear Tina laughing from the living room. I swear, I think she does this stuff on purpose.

Several years ago, I slipped on the ice in our back yard. The slip itself was quite actually impressive. My feet wound up about five feet off the ground and my whole body was perpendicular with the sidewalk below. For an instant, it probably resembled one of those David Blaine levitation stunts. But, in my case, an inevitable crash landing was looming. My ass made contact with the ground first which then  caused a resonating pain down my entire left side of my body. Tina had come outside just in the nick of time to see the aftermath of me rolling around in agony on the cold ground. Her response? She laughed like she was watching Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinny".

Earlier this week, I literally ran into another one of my "humorous" mishaps. Tina keeps this electric heater in the bedroom to take the chill off on those really cold nights. The heater resembles a small cast iron stove. Although it's not actually made out of cast iron, it's hard enough (as I would soon find out!) As I roll out of bed to the soothing sound of Tina's 2000-watt hairdryer in the adjacent room, I groggily made my way toward the bathroom. Slowly coming out of the previous night's slumber, I rubbed my semi-open eyes. Then, out of nowhere, I heard a loud "clank". Approximately 100 milliseconds later, I felt a pounding pain in my right kneecap. I had walked right into the corner of the freggin' stove! I leaned against the wall and exhaled a few profanities as I waited for the pain to subside. Meanwhile, in predictable fashion, I hear giggling from the next room. In an attempt to get at least a little emotional support, I explain that the heater just pulled a "Tonya Harding" on my f*cking knee and I'm in serious pain over here. This only generates more laughter and an unsympathetic response of "You really crack me up".

Sometimes, this situation will take turn in a slightly different direction. One time, we were in a grocery store and there was a spill in one of the aisles. I think it was Frank's Red Hot or something. All I remember is that it was red and wet. So, Tina says to me, "Hey Ken, why don't you go over there and slip on that and break your leg. We'll be rich!" Can you believe this bullshit? What kind of sadistic individual says something like that to her husband? Sometimes I feel like the victim in one of those Lifetime movies. She was probably only kidding (at least I hope so) but you can bet your ass that she'd be laughing hysterically if I was laying in Frank's Red Hot with a protruding fibula.

It ain't easy being me, folks. It sure ain't easy....

kw