Mi-dear Collision

“Good evening, sir. My name is Officer Luke. My partner, Officer Lease, is in the next room talking with your wife.”

“Talking about what?”

“The hospital,” Officer Luke continued, “is required to call us when they suspect domestic violence.”

“Domestic violence. What domestic violence?”

“Well sir, your left eye is swollen shut. You have ten stitches in your left eyebrow and you are missing a front tooth. The EMTs said that when the ambulance arrived at your home you were nearly unconscious from a concussion and there were pieces of broken furniture scattered around the living room. Your wife, whom my partner is currently speaking with, has eight stitches in her forehead at the hairline and another eight on her right shin. Would you care to explain to me how these injuries occurred?”

Officer Luke pulled a spiral notepad from his uniform shirt pocket and clicked his pen.

“Well, Occifer, it’s all a bit fuzzy but I can assure you that the maelstrom that occurred in my living room was the result of an accident, not assault.”

The overly muscular policeman gave me a look of skepticism.

“I want you to know,” he said, “that I will be comparing your explanation with that which Officer Lease is taking from your wife so think very carefully about what you are about to tell me.”

“On a good day our stories don’t match up so just to be on the safe side, go with mine.”

“Thith is a clathic example of a slight miscalculation of athletic abilities,” I said, whistling air past my missing tooth.

“Cheryl and I were watching Simone Biles do a floor routine on TV at the U.S Classic. We were discussing the Twisties problem Simone had at the last summer Olympics and her prospects for competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.”

“Now, what you should know about Cheryl is that she started as a YMCA Brat gymnast in middle school. Since girl’s gymnastics wasn’t a real thing yet, they had the use of a wrestling mat for tumbling, a set of men’s parallel bars, and a laminated wood beam to practice on. As she got older, she was captain of the gymnastic team at high school and represented the school at the State Championships. After high school and through our early married life she was a gymnastic coach all over the county. She knows gymnastics.

“I then made the mistake of telling her that we had a tumbling class in middle school, Boy’s PE. I simply said that I would lie on my back on the wrestling mat with my knees up. Another one of the boys would run up to my feet, put his hands on my knees, stiff-armed, roll forward sending his feet into the air, and I would catch his shoulders in my hands and flip him over my head. This was how we learned front handsprings. I asked her if she had learned front handsprings using this method. She said, ‘that was a technique used to teach the chronically uncoordinated kids how to handspring.’ Naturally, I dared her to try one.”

“It was fairly easy to clear a path. We moved the table in the kitchen off to the side and stacked the living room couches on top of each other. She then took off her socks, propped open the laundry room door and went out into the garage for the required runway. I laid on my back on the living room floor with my knees and arms in the air, looking much like a dying cockroach.”

“Go for it!” I yelled.

“Here I come,” I heard her yell from the garage.

“Generally, I never let the kids or grandkids run in the house. There are just too many things to get broken.”

“You would be surprised how loud it is when an adult is running through the house. The China plates were rattling in the cupboards and the paintings on the wall swung crooked. When she entered the living room the hammers on my piano were bouncing off the strings. For one terrifying moment, I thought this may not work.”

“As she ran up to me, she dove forward placing her stiff-armed hands on my knees. Her body then came forward as her legs went into the air and I grabbed her shoulders in my hands.”

There was a noticeable pause.

“And?” Officer Luke asked impatiently.

“I, I guess she was a little more than my biceps had expected. My arms buckled. I remember seeing that full head of gray hair heading toward my face. Then there was the collision of her forehead with my face. We both cried out in pain and out of fight or flight instinct, I kicked up with my knees and pushed as hard as I could with my arms which did complete her handspring, albeit in a direction diagonal to her planned landing zone. Actually, she landed on her back on the wooden tea cart which then rolled into the glass French doors putting her leg through one of the panes.”

“And which one of you called 911?” Officer Luke asked.

“Neither one of us could remember what the numbers were, so I had Hey Google make the call.”

Officer Lease entered the room and walked up to face Officer Luke.

“As far as I can tell, it’s not spousal violence,” he said looking my way with a smirk on his face.

Officer Luke stared at his note binder for a moment.

“You are both 69 years old. Did you think that handspring would work?” he asked.

“I can’t understand it myself, Officer Luke. The Back Handspring Double Full Dismount she did off the piano last weekend went so well.”

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