Mother's Day

Here's a look at a Mother's day past:

My friend was coming over to share the day with me. He would grill the steaks and I would broil a couple lobster tails and make a salad. The meat was marinating and the tails were cracked, ready for the broiler. The house was clean and neat. The dishes, salad plates, place mats and fancy crystal glasses were ready to go, along with a pretty glass lantern that I would place in the middle of our table. We would be dining on the patio outside.

All is well, except... I have looked all over for my good silverware that I rarely use. It seems to be misplaced somewhere. Oh yeah, I think. I bet it's in that box labeled "kitchen" that I placed in the attic, upstairs. The "attic" is a pretty decent sized, unfinished room that sits beside my bedroom and can only be accessed by what I call a doggy door within the upstairs linen closet. There is a panel covering the access hole that is screwed into the wall. You have to crawl through the hole, and then you can stand up and turn on the light. I found that little room by mistake one day when my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to use it for storage.

I unscrewed the panel, crawled in, turned on the light and easily found my kitchen box. I walked on the joists until I reached the box, then I stood on what I thought was solid footing. I was digging through the box, searching, when I heard a little "crack" sound. I didn't pay much attention to it and kept on searching. Then there was a big CRAAAACK sound. Not only did I pay attention that time, but I tried to utter a couple of prayer words, like "Oh God." Before I got to the God part I was falling through the ceiling into my living room. I thought I was going to die and I had no idea where I would be landing.

You won't believe this, but it's true. I landed in the living room on the couch, just as if I had decided to take a moment to sit and watch TV. My back was against the cushions and my feet were placed neatly on the floor in front of me. I kid you not. If I had fallen about a foot further into the room, I would have fallen on the glass coffee table.

If I had meticulously planned such a thing, I would not have been able to make it to happen. I had a brief moment of disorientation, then noticed that I was on the couch, surrounded by chunks and crumbs of drywall, a cloud of dust, and that pink insulation stuff that looks like cotton candy but itches like hell. After a brief period of wonderment at my failure to win a Darwin Award, I got up and started cleaning up the mess. Needless to say, I decided that I didn't need the good silverware, after all.

My friend arrived. He brought flowers and fresh fruit so that we could make a fruit salad for desert. When he walked in I told him, "don't laugh." "Don't laugh at what?" he said.

I brought him further into the house, into the living room.

"What? I don't see anything," he said. I pointed up. "Oh, are you remodeling?" he said. I said, "No, I fell through the ceiling."

" No, you didn't."

" I did. Look at the me-sized hole."

"How could you fall through the ceiling?"

" I was in the attic and I just fell through."

"I find that hard to believe," says he. And then I pulled up my sleeves so he could see where there were long, ugly bruises that came from squeezing through the hole in the ceiling.

Finally, I saw concern on his face. "Oh, honey, are you alright?"

"I'm alright," I said, "just embarrassed. The real pain won't start until tomorrow. I've got bruises on my hips, too. I'll need you to make it all better."

He looked up at the hole in the ceiling once more, then started laughing. I told him not to laugh.

"Don't you know that you're supposed to stay on the wooden joists up there?" he said.

"No, I don't know anything about how houses are constructed," I said, feeling dumb as a pet rock.

Everything else went off without a hitch. We had a beautiful evening. The next day I called the management office for our complex and they sent someone over to assess and repair the damage. I told the maintenance guy not to laugh when I let him in. Guess what he did? Yep!

Happy Mother's Day!