Incident Report: A Guest Posting, by JLR

RR posts her daily incident reports, so you might be inclined to think that she is the clumsy one in the family. Sadly, this is not the case. She is not alone. For example, it’s exactly 9:37 in the morning as I type this, and I already have green ink all over one fingernail on my left hand and the palm of my right hand. I have no idea how it got there, but it’s a safe bet it will be on my face before the day is over.

It just runs in the family. Our mother has apologized profusely many times for it. Our parents feel very guilty about the negative genes they’ve passed on. Whenever I brought home a mediocre grade in math, my father was never disappointed in my performance—he just apologized. “Sorry about that,” he’d say, taking the blame. My mom does the same thing whenever one of us does something klutzy. But whereas my dad always apologized in a resigned, what-do-you-do-about-it type of way, my mom always apologizes in a way that makes it seem as though she’d given us the pox—and on purpose.

Then again, the clumsy factor can cause more harm than a bad math gene. My mom should know. She once got her hand caught in a mixer. Whenever I tell people that, they always say “how do you do that,” meaning how can someone possibly get their hand caught in a mixer, and all I can say is, I’m always careful when I turn on the Kitchen Aid. All three of us females have at some point sliced off some part of a finger with a potato peeler. For me it was my thumbprint. I had an urge to go commit crimes—no fingerprints—but I resisted. My poor father has had to assume the role of Accident Preventer. Back when RR was in college, when he discovered that her closet had very high shelves, Dad made her promise that she would not climb on a stepstool or anything else to get something down from there unless she had supervision. He has banned my mother from using anything sharper than a butter knife when she’s home alone. Every year when I need to replace my car inspection sticker, my dad removes the old one for me. Last year I said that I was old enough, that I ought to do it myself and could I just borrow a razor blade, and my dad looked at me and said, “well . . . why don’t you just bring your car over.” He didn’t add, “because I think you look better with 10 fingers,” but it was implied.

[RR's note: he also--politely but firmly--turned down my offer to mow the lawn for him.]
[JLR's note to RR's note: when we suggested it, he laughed at us.]

Our clumsiness can also harm those around us. RR has mentioned that she has recently punched herself in the face (twice), but she didn’t mention that once, when I was putting my arm through the sleeve of my coat, I punched her in the face. And then a few days later, when I was explaining to someone how I’d managed to do something like that accidentally, I did it again. I will say this for RR—she can take a punch.

Sometimes clumsiness isn’t an inconvenience, it’s just good entertainment. Some other time I’ll tell my two favorite stories of spills I’ve taken. I’ll save for another time examples of instances when we were injured by other people’s clumsiness, which we’ll detail in one of RR’s upcoming posts, “Head Injuries I Have Had.” For now, I just wanted to say that RR isn’t alone—it’s a family affair.