Of course I’ve long known about my inability to go straight. My mother used to tell me all the time, “Stand up straight.” I’ve never been able to tell a lie with a straight face either. Funny thing about that lying business though. When you tell the truth people don’t often believe you because they’re so accustomed to others lying through their teeth. In my drinking days I used to win games of Liar’s Dice because I told the truth about the hand I’d rolled and didn’t try to bluff my buddies. Problem with that strategy was that the prize for winning a hand was another drink and I would get totally blasted. Good thing I don’t do that anymore.
But as to the business of having trouble going straight, my problem was brought home to me this week again as I attempted to cut straight lines on the lumber I’d bought to replace the trim around the outside of the house windows; I even bought a new Skil Saw to make the job easier. But did it? No! It did not! I had a lot of do-overs.
As far as being arrested for drunk driving – I never have been and hope I never will. What I worry about these days is, even though I drink very little (an occasional glass now and then) I’m afraid if Kathleen and I go out to dinner and I have one beer and I get pulled over for some minor offense on the way home a cop might ask me if I’d been drinking. I hate to lie so I’d say I had one beer and of course he (could be a she nowadays) wouldn’t believe me. I have lousy balance these days and my diabetes has made me somewhat shaky and I stumble a bit so I’m doubtful I could walk a straight line even if Jesus was stretching his hands out to me at the other end.
You don’t want to play Pictionary with me either because I can’t draw a straight line without a ruler. I had to draw a picture of New Orleans one time and the only clue I could think of to draw for my partner was one of those wrought iron balconies you see in pictures of Bourbon Street buildings. Of course my choice of clue required drawing some straight lines and my poor partner couldn’t guess in a million years what I was trying to tell her. Give me Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit or some game like that and I’m fine, but Pictionary? I may never play that game again. And forget Twister; I’d just have to lay on the floor and let people pile on me. Of course that might not be such a bad thing now when I think about it.
Excuse me now I have to go maul some more window trim. Hope my house doesn’t wind up looking like the house at Confusion Hill (in the redwoods).
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