We are headed up to bed, “Hey, Mark?”
“What?”
“OK, I know you are going to think I am insane, but sometimes I know something and I want you to know just in case. Probably you are never going to need this information, but if it were to come to pass that you DID need this information and I hadn’t told you, I would feel really bad and you would be all What the fuck, Kris? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Mark stares at me.
I hold up my iPhone, “In an emergency in which all of your arms and legs are broken? You can still call for help on your iPhone with your nose or your tongue.”
Mark giggles, “Really, Kris?”
“And in answer to your question, yes. Yes, I did actually use my nose and then my tongue to dial a phone number to be sure it would work.”
Mark has no words.
At the top of the stairs, I reach to turn on the light in the girls’ bathroom.
Mark watches me, “Is that light really necessary?”
“Yeah, babe. I don’t want the girls to get up in the middle of the night and have to go to the bathroom and then accidentally make a right turn instead of a left turn and fall down the stairs.”
“We’ve lived here for quite a while. I think the girls know where the bathroom is.”
“Yes, well . . . I worry about them. What if they are confused in the dark?”
“Can’t we just get a nightlight for the bathroom?”
“Nope. It has to be a bright enough light that the stairs are illuminated. Just in case.”
“You worry about the oddest things . . . the girls are not going to mistake the stairs for the bathroom and fall to their doom.”
“You don’t know. It’s my job to worry about these things. Like being mistaken for a slasher-knifer killer and shish-kabob Jack . . . if I don’t worry about that, no one else will.”
“Wait . . . what? Shish-kabob Jack?”
“Stop giggling. These are perfectly reasonable fears.”
“Oh my god, Kris. You are insane.”
“I am not! OK, so you know how you are supposed to carry knives with the pointy bits aimed down at the floor so that in case you trip and fall, you stab the ground instead of your eyeballs?”
“OK . . .”
“Alright, so sometimes Jack goes insane with desire for the knives, jumping around like a crazy spring-loaded thing. If I go walking around with sharp knives aimed down at the floor, there is a good chance that he will leap up into the knives and impale himself on a blade. And then what? I have a dog on a knife and no good explanation for how that shit happened.”
Mark is just staring at me.
“So I could carry the knives sideways, but then I have this weird certain fear that I will trip and fall and slash open my wrists.”
More silence.
“So I generally hold the knives way high up in the air, pointy bits down.”
More staring.
“Ummm . . . and I have to hold the knives way far out away from my body because of the danger to eyeballs.”
More silence.
“What? So I am always vaguely concerned when I set the table that someone will see me through the front window with my arms up high and knife-wielding and wonder who I am about to stab.”
More staring.
“Also? I have to be careful that the girls are not below me as I walk, because obviously if I trip and fall, I am in perfect daughter-stabbing position.”
Silence.
“OK, now your silence is annoying me. How have you not noticed that setting the table is fraught with danger? Every night that we all sit down to eat with unslashed wrists, intact eyeballs, and un-shish-kabobbed dog? I count that as a triumph.”
Mark giggles again, “Remember that thing about you being insane?”
“Yeah?”
“That.”
“Shut up. You are lucky to have me to worry about these things. If I wasn’t here to tell you, you would never know that after you fall down the stairs and break all of your arms and legs, if you can just manage to flop over to where your iPhone has fallen out of your pocket, you can dial 911 with your nose or your tongue.”
“What did you just say?”
“OK, yes . . . if by some miracle the iPhone is still in your pocket after the fall, you can just wiggle your butt until it falls out, but I am thinking that a fall involving enough violence to break your arms and legs would dislodge the . . . Why are you staring at me like that?”
“The light in the bathroom is not about the girls at all, is it?”
“Ummm . . . of course it is.”
“No, it’s not! You’re worried that you’ll get out of bed in the middle of the night and head downstairs in the darkness and trip and fall down the stairs!”
“I am not!”
“Yes, you are! You’re worried that you will fall and break all of your arms and legs and no one will come to help you, and so you will have to call for help on your iPhone . . . with your tongue! Bwahahahaha!”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Utterly.”
Mark thinks for a second, “Wait, you’re right. You get out of bed and pull on your robe and head downstairs . . . you don’t always have your iPhone with you.”
I avoid eye contact.
Mark laughs, “Really? You take your iPhone with you when you get out of bed?”
“Hush. My robe has big pockets, and if there is an emergency of the broken-limbed crumpled-on-the-stairs sort, and no one in this stupid family gets out of bed and comes to see what all the commotion is about . . . I will be tongue-dialing for help.”
Mark laughs helplessly.
I glare at him, “I will tongue-dial for help and I will be saved because I have thought this shit through. So shut up.”
Mark falls into bed, laughing hysterically, “Oh my god, Kris. I cannot even breathe! You will tongue-dial for help?”
Annoying.
I turn to him, “Just for that, I am not going to tell you how to keep from being sucked out of the bathroom window to your death.”
He gasps with laughter, “Bwahahahahaha!”
So annoying.
