Pratfalls, Face Plants and Other Indignities

My wife is a wonderful wife and mother. Nothing matters more to her than the health, safety and happiness of her family.

And yet, she suffers from an unmotherly affliction that overcomes her whenever she sees one of us get hurt: her eyes get wide, her body shakes, her mouth opens, and out comes a rolling, gleeful, and completely uncontainable fit of laughter.

One of her daughters might have just walked into the kitchen table - at whatever age put her at exactly the right height to hit the table after never having had to bend down in the past to get under there - and she's likely crying in genuine pain...but before Mommy can hug her and kiss her and make her all better, Mommy must first stop laughing hysterically.

When we were first married, we lived in a small semi in Richmond Hill. The stairs to the basement had a low ceiling (low even for someone of my stature) and one day my wife and I were on the landing and she sent me down to the basement to get something. With the youthful exuberance of one first married, deeply infatuated with his (relatively) new bride, I bounded down the stairs excitedly - keen to grant my bride's request - and promptly smacked my forehead into a 4-inch vertical piece of the ceiling (probably fashioned that way by the builder to somehow help its overall downward slope while saving a few moments of effort). My feet continued down the stairs a few inches above the next one or two steps while my forehead remained temporarily attached to the piece of ceiling it had found. Then I remember being completely horizontal in the air, with a bit more forward momentum. Then bumping down the stairs. And then I was on the ground, at the bottom of the stairs, dazed and confused, with little birds carouseling about my head. Back up on the landing, I heard my beautiful young wife, bent over, laughing uproariously, stomping her feet, and otherwise of no help to her possibly dying husband. She didn't dial 911. She didn't ask if I was okay. She didn't dash down the stairs to take my pulse or check for broken bones or any other damage...she couldn't. For a good 5 minutes, she had no control over her bodily movements.

I could have been badly hurt and those first few seconds/minutes might have made the difference between life and death, but I don't blame her. I was mad at her - don't get me wrong - but as I then learned, she's got an affliction. My Dad has the same one. As does my childhood friend Paul. Great people, all of them, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want any one of them with my life in their hands after I've walked through a plate glass door, or tripped over a curb and face planted onto a sidewalk.
(Watching a movie like Rat Race with slapstick galore, yes, I want them with me then. Nobody makes the experience more fun.)

I watched a businessman yesterday, uniformed in his suit and tie and hustling off to one of the downtown towers, lose his footing as he climbed the stone steps from the street. He didn't go all the way down, but planted a knee, caught himself with his un-briefcased hand, and quickly righted himself. His first reaction, once back in control, was to swing his head around and scan his surroundings to see if anyone had seen his stumble. Why? Because nobody likes the indignity of being caught in a clumsy moment, let alone laughed at.

Years ago, friends and I were at a concert at the Ontario Place Forum on an icy autumn day. The Forum was a stage surrounded by a few rows of seats, and then large hills on which people could sit and watch the show. Back then (and maybe today?) you could enter the Forum in various ways, one of which was to climb a hill and then make your way down the other side to find a seat. On this particular day, the hills were slick with ice on the interior side, and a whole lot of people coming over the hill suddenly found themselves airborne and then on their butts sliding down the hill - with hundreds of people laughing and applauding their very public misfortune. It became a game - the stadium holding its collective breath as each new victim appeared at the top of the hill, then losing its collective mind as the inevitable wipe-out ensued. Imagine the humiliation. Some people were graceful about it, stood up, dusted themselves off, and took a bow. Others pretended nothing had happened. I remember a kid crying. I remember some genuine anger. I guess we all handle the moment differently.

Not that long ago (15 years? 20?) I had the opportunity to play softball with my oldest sister - the unofficially ordained "Queen of the Pratfall". She got a hit, which itself was something I'd never expected. She rounded first and then second with speed and drive I didn't know she had. And then she fell. But not in a way that ordinary people fall: Her face went down first (for most of us, our hands would have instinctively shot out to take the brunt of the fall - but it was her face that nobly declared "don't worry hands, I've got this one.") When running at full speed with little dexterity, the face suddenly hitting the ground significantly alters what the rest of the body is doing. In her case, her feet continued shuffling forward - in the air now - until not so gracefully touching down on the back of her head. For a moment, she was completely folded in half, and then her legs' inertia continued forward, completing the least athletic flip it will ever be my pleasure to witness.

And my sister sat up, looked at us - some of us laughing, some of us staring in horror - brushed the infield sand off her clothes, and laughed harder than anyone else. She handled the moment well.

When I was lying at the bottom of the basement stairs all those years ago, I didn't handle the moment well. I think I yelled at my wife. I think I said something like "Would you mind fucking checking if I'm fucking hurt and might need to be fucking hospitalized before fucking laughing at me?" Like I said, I guess we're all different.

Two-year-olds and three-year-olds are only partially people at that age. They are clumsy. They've only recently learned to go about on two legs. Their heads are too big and heavy for their tiny little bodies. They bump into things. They fall down stairs. They bang their head. They lose their balance when there's absolutely no reason to do so. When these things happen, they want (and need!) their Mommy's tender loving care. In my house, they used to get Daddy's tender loving care and Mommy in tears, laughing hysterically, pointing, and then finally stepping up to the TLC plate, trying to hug them but still shaking with laughter, trying to console them, but still giggling under her breath. And yet they love her.

She's got an affliction. So does my Dad. So does Paul. And yet, they're all good people.

Some people don't like being laughed at when they fall down go boom. Others don't seem to mind as much. Some laugh at themselves. Some scream profanities at the person/people laughing at them. Again, they're all good people.

And sometimes, people who laugh at others when they hurt themselves marry people who don't like to be laughed at when they've hurt themselves.

True love means staying together for decades despite our differences.