GRACE!

I understand that moments after a baby is born the great spirits come around with baskets filled with wonderful things to pass out to them. That’s why some folks have a nice smile and others have big, kind hearts.

No one told me that there were less wonderful things in that basket so I was eager to get what I could. I didn’t ask enough questions before I dipped my hands into the basket and thought cellulites had to be something with a chocolate coating so I dipped both my fat little hands in and got all I could hold.

Then one of those great spirits told me what I’d just gotten and I was a lot more careful with the second basket. I reached in with two fingers and barely got a pinch and wouldn’t you know it, that one contained grace.

I’m that person who can’t walk within forty feet of a mud puddle without some of it reaching out and grabbing hold of my skirt tail. I’m that person who can trip over a thin layer of air if it gets transferred from one the living room to the bedroom. Mr. B says I’m almost as graceful as a double herniated hippopotamus on ice and he’s being nice when he says that. I’m really much worse.

People like me are the reason there are wider aisles in the supermarkets and why there are pyramids of toilet paper and paper towels in wider aisles instead of glass bottles of maple syrup.

The worst place this clumsy business got ahead of me wasn’t in the grocery store but rather in a clothing store. I was looking through a sales rack when I caught a lady in my peripheral vision about a foot from me. She was one of those impeccably dressed size three gals with her hair and nails done perfectly. I cut my eyes around to see if her toe nails were chipped and couldn’t tell because she was wearing four inch high heels. I could see that she had really long lashes but I really wanted a closer look to see if they were fake.

So I quickly turned around to speak to the lady. Gracelessness and quickness do not in any stretch of the imagination make for anything other than an immediate disaster.

I ran right into Miss Perfect and sent her face down onto the floor. I started apologizing and trying up help the poor thing up while visions of law suits danced through my head. Does anyone out there have a policy with a section covering clumsy?

Then I realized the lady wasn’t breathing and rigor mortis had already set in. That horrible word—homicide—flashed across my brain. Would the children bring the grandkids to see me in solitary confinement if the jury didn’t decide to render mercy and declare it an accident?

There I was with tears running down my face, apologizing and begging the woman to breathe when I put my fingers on her neck, just like they do in the cop shows, and realized I was touching a mannequin. It didn’t take me long to get her upright and smiling at the world in her size three expensive suit. One fake lash hung down the side of her nose but I didn’t fix it.

Heck, no! Maybe it would keep the next clumsy person from doing what I did. I made a hasty retreat out into the mall. Thank goodness the clerk was talking to her boyfriend on the phone and the other two ladies in the store at that time were in dressing rooms. Not a single soul saw what happened…my pride was saved!