TV Stand, Footstool, Lamp, Dumb Dog

Josh and I drove across the state recently.  I wanted to see  my sister and her family.   Josh wanted to see all kinds of people in the region we were going to.  (He’s a very gregarious fellow.)  We stayed at Mom’s house.  She’s not there ‘cause she winters in Florida, but she foolishly gave me a copy of her key, so that’s where we stayed.  It’s convenient.  She lives in town (near the college some of Josh’s friends attend).  My sister, Heidi,  lives out in the country, miles from any place you want to get to, unless you want to get to a field, barn, cow or goat.  Heidi was going to have to re-enter civilization to spend a little time in her office, which happens to be close to Mom’s house, so it made sense to stay at Mom’s.  We would get together when she was done with work. 

Just before Mom left for Florida, she picked out a TV stand that had to be ordered and would be ready for pick up in a few weeks.  It was eventually delivered to the store.  A few days before Josh and I arrived, Heidi had gone to the store, loaded the stand into her van, and dragged it into the house (setting off the security alarm in the meantime—but that’s another story involving the police and phone calls and special passwords).  She only had time to set it down in front of the old TV stand (which was really our brother’s old dresser that had been lugged up from the basement to hold her new big, fancy flat screen TV until a nice stand could be found).  The dresser held Mom’s collection of DVD’s, CD’s, and other entertainment paraphernalia rather nicely.  What it didn’t hold was her cable box and her DVD/Video player.  They had been placed beside the dresser on a rustic twig footstool  that went to a rustic twig rocker that sits out on the deck in the nice weather.

I figured Josh and I could move the TV and the other stuff to the new stand so it would be all set for Mom when she came back from Florida.  It was kind of payback for camping at Mom’s house.  But as usual, when I was ready to get to work, Josh couldn’t be found.  He had slipped out to visit the aforementioned friends.  OK, it was gonna be all me, apparently.  I veeeerrrry carefully moved that big screen TV from one stand to the other—praying the entire time.  Everything went well.  The TV stand has an open shelf for the extra pieces of equipment  so they were unplugged, moved to the new unit, and plugged in again.  And let me tell you—they come with a lot of wires—white, yellow, red, blue, green.  Thankfully the manufacturers color code the back panel—probably to keep some of us from sitting down on the floor and bursting into tears when we have to mess with them.   Once that was done,  there was no use for that little Adirondack footstool anymore.  I picked it up and started for the garage. 

Unfortunately, Mom has a side table that happens to stick out in the path I’d be taking through the living room.  There’s a lamp on the table.  The lamp is made of cut glass.  I was holding the footstool up chest high as I tried to pass.  Somehow one of the legs of the stool  must have come in contact with the edge of the lampshade and it started to tip over.  There was no question--it was going to fall off that table and hit the ground.  In a split second I thought, “Oh shoot, that lamp is made of glass!  It’s going to shatter all over when it hits the new hardwood flooring!  Mom’s going to kill me!”  So I did what anyone would do—I stuck my foot out to break the lamp’s fall.  The footstool was still being held up in the air as the lamp came down on my foot.  Somehow I got tangled up and my right foot ended up inside the lampshade (because the lamp was now on its side on the floor) which made me stumble a little.  I started to lose my balance.  My arms must have come up, because the edge of the wooden footstool smacked into the bottom of my chin.  (I still have the cut and bruise to prove it.) Then my foot came down and landed right on top of the light bulb, which broke into a zillion pieces, of course.  Thankfully I was wearing shoes.  (A little tiny sliver of broken light bulb still managed to land in one shoe, however.)  But guess what?  The glass lamp survived!  An added bonus:   the lampshade made it too!  Wish I had a video of those 10 seconds—it had to look absolutely ridiculous.  Do these things happen to other people?  Talk about feeling like a clod….

A weird post script to the story:  I thought all the broken light bulb had been swept up, but a short while later I heard a crunching sound.  Cambridge was lying in the middle of the rug chewing on something.   What do you think it was?  How about a big piece of light bulb.  What in the world?  You should have seen the confused look on his face when it was taken from him.  There’s definitely something seriously wrong with that puppy.