Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: CLUMSY (04/11/19)
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TITLE: Born To Be A Klutz | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mariane Holbrook
04/16/19 -
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She was right.
From the time I was three, I regularly fell running up the stairs and tumbled back down. As I grew older, I went through cartons of Band-Aids for my skinned knees and cuts from roller skating and ice skating. There wasn't a curb in town I hadn't tripped over.
At Grandma's farm, I hung upside down from a branch on the apple tree and broke my arm. I fell through a trap door in Grandpa's barn and landed below in the feeding trough for the cows, leaving me with a badly sprained ankle. Limping on the way back to the house, I was stung by a hornet.
At home, I slipped on the wet bathroom floor every time I took a bath. When I was four, I was sitting on the cellar stairs, using a butcher knife to eat from a jar of Mother's strawberry jam, when I fell halfway down the steps. Luckily, I wasn't killed.
In school, I was the last one picked for softball games because I usually tripped on the way to first base. I was often late for classes because when I'd drop my heavy load of textbooks and kneel to pick them up, the boys would have fun kicking them far out of my reach. My clumsiness was legendary.
When we had guests for dinner, you could count on my spilling my drink all over the tablecloth. Mother stopped asking me to serve desserts to our guests for fear I'd dump the plates' contents all over their shoulders.
When I walked down the aisle at my wedding, my family perched on the edge of their seats waiting for me to trip on the hem of my bridal gown and cause mayhem. Daddy held onto me for dear life and breathed an audible sigh of relief when he finally handed me over to my waiting bridegroom.
So it came as no surprise years later when my clumsiness caused our small village to collectively burst out in uncontrolled laughter when the society editor of the newspaper wrote about an incident involving me in her humor column.
My white cockapoo puppy, Missy, was responsible this time and I never forgave her. If I hadn't loved her so much I would have been dispatched her to the dog pound about once a week. Her favorite thing was to chew the toes out of John's socks and shred his underwear into pieces. When bored, she'd carefully pull the roll of bathroom tissue through the house, down the hall and back to the bathroom without ever tearing it. It was an incredible feat of accomplishment.
One memorable summer afternoon I was taking a leisurely bath when I heard my husband call to me, "I'm going to the grocery store. I'll be back shortly." I heard him close the kitchen screen door but not the heavy wooden door.
I couldn't continue bathing knowing anyone could just walk in, so I grabbed my towel,
wrapped it loosely around me and hurried to the kitchen with Missy right beside me.
I was still dripping water so the kitchen linoleum was getting wet.
Just as I reached the door, I slipped on a puddle and fell in front of the
open door. Missy quickly seized the end of my towel and began running through the house with it, leaving me totally unclothed in front of the see-through screen door.
Standing, I reached over to shut the heavy kitchen door when to my horror, I stood face-to-face with the UPS delivery man.
He turned beet red and I turned ghostly white. I jumped back out of view while he dropped a package on the top step and bolted toward his truck.
Still hiding, I called out in despair, "I'm so sorry. Do I owe you any money?"
In a trembling voice, he yelled back over his shoulder what sounded like, "Lady, no.
You don't know me anything."
With that, he gunned his motor and sped down the road.
I never saw him again. I suspect he either asked UPS for a transfer or was committed to the local hospital's psychiatric ward.
As for Missy, I chased her through the house, tackled her, scolded her soundly, and permanently removed her flea collar.
Non-fiction
"But to each one of us, grace has been given as God apportioned it." Ephesians 4:7 KJV
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You did an excellent job writing this. Kudos!
I did get a little confused in the middle, wondering why the whole town was laughing . . .until I continued on. I enjoyed the descriptions of your incidents leading up to the final one.