Accidental Husband Shooting

It happened so fast.

I really didn’t mean to do it.

In my feeble defense, he was totally asking for it.

I was at the sink, scraping a bit of lasagna off a plate when Graeme slid into the room in his socks (and additional clothes as well), and opened fire at the back of my shorts. Then he giggled and ran away. For a few days afterwards, I would carry the little round spots of knockoff Nerf darts on my legs where he had missed his mark.

But it was nothing compared to what happened to him a few minutes later. I say he was asking for it, but he really didn’t deserve what I did to him and although I did laugh hysterically afterwards, I also squeezed out a couple guilty tears before bed and apologized profusely for months. I still apologize at random times, when the memory returns to haunt me…

Standing in line at Save Mart

“I’m sorry I shot you that one time.”

After reading the Bible at bedtime

“You really didn’t deserve what I did to you last year.”

When the pastor makes me greet my neighbor

“I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me one day.”

Yes, I still apologize at regular intervals of about three months. I also giggle a little bit.

It’s awful, this inappropriate giggling habit. I am convinced it’s a primitive sort of self-preserving mechanism, because I really see how it would be better not to laugh sometimes, but I can’t stop it from coming out. I can think of a good analogy, but I really see how it would be better not to write it, and I will stop it from coming out.

For example, I laughed horrendously when we went for a walk in the orchard with friends a couple years ago, forgetting: 1) It was springtime 2) There are bees everywhere 3) Our friends are allergic to bees.

I really wish I could go back and slap the giggles off my face, but I’m also laughing as I write this. I can’t figure this thing out. Is this the kind of behavior people see therapists for?

Anyway, the first part of the walk was entirely uneventful, but we went back home down a different road and that was our pitfall. It was too late by the time we realized our fate. Quite suddenly, we found ourselves entirely surrounded by clouds of bees on every side. The sound was formidable and drowned everything else out.

We mothers did our best to remain calm and walked through the flying poison casually, as if this was the kind of thing we always did on a Tuesday morning. But then Forest felt one of the twenty bees in his curls and…

He smacked it.

The feigned nonchalance ended then. He took off running in such a way as I have never seen before or since. Like a spooked horse, he flew through the row of almond trees, his feet barely touching the ground. I chased after the screaming blur of flailing limbs as fast as I could go, which wasn’t very fast since I was also pushing Grace in one of those hideous little plastic cars people abandon in alleyways.

I also had a few bees in my hair, but didn’t smack them because I wasn’t a five-year-old boy. Forest was already in the house by the time the little Step2 tires crashed into the porch steps. Interestingly, Grace hadn’t acquired any bees on the way and for all she knew, I was just feeling real energetic this morning and had provided her with a better ride than usual.

Graeme came out of the house, with the look of a man who has just witnessed a screaming boy run in with 19 bees on his head. He had already taken care of Forest and moved on to my hair, where four bees were having a rather bad morning themselves. Graeme then ran into the orchard to rescue my poor friend who was carrying her youngest child and hadn’t made it back yet.

A few minutes and many dead bees later, all five children and both mothers congregated in the living room, pulling out stingers and unsuccessfully trying to get the kids to calm down. We offered them candy and a movie, and still the screaming continued, louder than the bees had buzzed. And then, through the screaming and crying and worrying about the allergic boy and what might become of him, I made eye contact with my friend…

And I giggled.

I’m really not as unstable as you think I am right now…but there it is. When something unpleasant happens, people always say they’ll laugh about it one day, but I say how about today instead.

So it won’t surprise you to learn I also laughed that fateful Nerf night. You see, I really thought he was just being theatrical when he threw himself on the floor and screamed.

It happened so quickly.

I finished doing the dishes, giving off the impression of forgiveness. But as soon as the last plate went in the dishwasher, I snatched Forest’s Nerf gun (again, knockoff brand, but whatever), and stood real still next to the stove. Graeme wasn’t up to shenanigans anymore, but he was still feeling jolly, and he approached the kitchen whistling lightheartedly. And then he turned the corner…

And I shot him.

AHHHH!!!! All 5′ 11″ of his being collapsed in one fell swoop, and he lay on the hallway rug, screaming.

The kids loved it. Forest gave me a hi-five and we all rushed over laughing to see the man on the floor, thoroughly entertained by Daddy’s silly antics.

And then I realized the screaming was real and he was clutching his right eye.

OH NO DID I SHOOT YOUR EYE! I gasped, between snorts.

But he didn’t reply right away because he was still occupied with the screaming.

I really didn’t mean to shoot you in the eye!!! I wheezed.

Poor Graeme, I thought between my fits, I really couldn’t have shot him in the eye if I had intentionally set out to.

And as he lay there, with his hand over his eye and his knees on his chest, I felt the guilt of a wife who has doomed her husband to a life of partial blindness. Would he ever be able to work again? I imagined he would have to spend the rest of his days with an eyepatch on his face and a parrot on his shoulder.

He calmed down after the promise of candy and a movie, and although the eye was very very red and he regarded me with cautious fear for a few days, I am happy to report his right eye is in good working order (as good as it was before, of course…the shooting didn’t cure his astigmatism) and we didn’t have to acquire a talking bird.

I am also happy to report the allergic boy didn’t have a significant reaction, besides not wanting to come visit again for a few weeks.

Which is understandable.