Reality is All Relative

My uncle and aunt heard her cries for help. They looked down the sidewalk to see three young thugs running with a purse. “Are you okay?” my aunt asked her, and when the frightened woman nodded her head, my aunt was shocked to see her husband sprint down the street to take justice into his own hands.

Without thinking about this own safety, my godfather ran after the three punks and closed in quickly. Catching up to them, he grabbed at the strap of the stranger’s large leather purse, and tugged it away from the thief. As the other two men ran away, the ringleader struggled with my uncle, and they both fell to the ground, my uncle striking his left shoulder on the curb.

My uncle’s grip strengthened as he gripped the purse in his right hand, proceeding to swing the purse and beat the mugger with the item he attempted to steal. Discovering my uncle was not going to give up without a hell of a fight, the would-be thief dragged himself to his feet and fled the scene.

At our family’s fourth of July party, we asked my uncle to repeat this story over and over again so that he would remember it always. He would be starting physical therapy the following day and having more x-rays and MRI’s taken to determine the extent of injuries to his rotator cuff, the bicep tendon, muscles and cartilage in the shoulder region.

We had Uncle Johnny repeat the story again and again until he could easily remember and retell each and every detail without laughing, because not one single element of the story is true.

The fact of the matter is, while cutting his grass, he reached sideways to move the lawn chair in his path, lost his balance and his fist went straight through the thatched seat area, became entangled and flipped over, striking the concrete patio shoulder first.

To say that our family is accident-prone is an understatement, but thankfully we are also very creative, imaginative and enjoy laughing at ourselves and at each other. It is almost a family pastime to make up exceptional stories to cover our ridiculous missteps and challenges to gravity.

As a matter of fact, the same day my uncle chased down the mugger, his best friend jumped into a friend’s pool down in Florida to perform a cannonball, but didn’t realize the water was so shallow. We now are faced with the challenge to determine how Ron severely injured his Achilles tendon while saving a drowning victim in three feet of water in an empty pool. This story will take a bit more creativity to bring to life.

In the meantime, we can laugh only because everyone is doing well and on the mend. Maybe one of these days I’ll remember what story we told to cover-up the fact that I broke my toe while trying to step over the baby gate, missed my mark, and smacked my toe on the corner wall. The story escapes me, but I do remember my foot looking like Fred Flinstone’s, just slightly more blue.