My wife almost died yesterday – and if she had actually expired, the death certificate would have read Cause of Death: Spouse’s Carelessness and Cluelessness. And here’s what happened: Kathy came home at noon to take care of some things and to let the dogs out – and walked into the kitchenette and found our back door (the patio door) standing wide open. . . and the screen door was wide open as well. And for a terrifying two seconds she wondered where in the world our dogs were – until she saw that they were both sitting in the family room, happy as clams. (Incredible but true.) For a terrifying five seconds she wondered if someone had come in and ransacked and robbed the place- but no, nothing was missing and whatever appeared to be ransacked was just the mess that’s involved in living with Greg Berg. And then for a terrifying ten seconds (or more) she wondered what critters might have made themselves at home in the house, until she realized that our dogs would have been slightly upset/ excited/ agitated about that and obviously weren’t. And at that point, she stopped being terrified and started being angry and upset at my carelessness – as well she should be. We were really fortunate that our dogs hadn’t dug a ten-foot trench in our front yard or that a family of three-toed sloths hadn’t made themselves at home on our new leather couch – or that a gang of marauding robbers hadn’t walked off with our most precious possessions: my opera videos.
Seriously, it’s one of the dumber things I’ve ever done – and the consequences could have been truly awful – but it was due to a case of Technical Difficulties. Our back door handle is broken, so the only way to really close the door is to use the dead bolt. . . and one consequence of the broken mechanism is that the dead bolt, although it still works, doesn’t feel the same nor make its normal clicking sound – and really the only way to know for sure that the door has been dead bolted is to try to pull it open. And apparently I was in a big enough hurry that I didn’t do that . . . and you’ve already heard what happened.
There are all kinds of things that are great about being married. . . especially the way in which joys are doubled and burdens are shared. But one of the hardest things about marriage is that when one of you does something stupid, your other half is an innocent bystander who gets caught in the fallout. It’s like an exploding cigar that goes off in front of your own face and the face of the person you love more than anyone else. Your biggest mistakes are inflicted on your life partner – in fact, sometimes more on them than on yourself. And honestly, I hate that part of this – although apparently I don’t hate it enough to stop doing stupid things. And truth be told, I should also be grateful for this aspect of marriage because it probably does keep me from dropping even more balls (or losing more wallets) than if I were left to the cluelessness of my bachelorhood. I’m just really lucky to be married to someone who is very patient and forgiving and how is even able to laugh about some of my bumbling. I said some of my bumbling. Not all. No one has that much of a sense of humor.
Anyway, I now find myself locking that patio door with the care and caution of someone sterilizing an operating room – as though someone’s life depended on it. And in a sense, it does- because I’m pretty sure if I leave the back door open again like I did yesterday, it’s the last ball I’ll be dropping around here or anywhere, if you get my drift.