We're the pair you could've seen kneeling on the floor in a corner of the Buffalo airport hovering over a large suitcase and frantically pawing through heaps of dirty clothes after the check-in luggage had finally come and done its dutiful rounds on the baggage carousel. We were in this humbling position all because of getting to our hotel and blissfully throwing our personal vehicle keys into our biggest suitcase in favor of using the rental car keys at the beginning of our trip. And promptly forgetting about the location of the personal keys, which eventually worked their way to bottom of the suitcase under all the smelly laundry and finally showed up in the airport after we had dug for them in every compartment of every piece of carry-on luggage between the two of us, patted down every personal clothing pocket, and prayed every arrow prayer we could think to pull back on our bowstring and shoot.
We're the sheepish couple you could've caught trying to back safely down and off the steep and narrow Costa Rican mountain road we had endeavored to begin climbing with our rental vehicle because somehow we were super-committed to keep following the roads our GPS indicated as we made our way to visit a scenic volcano.
We're the frazzled couple you could have observed nearly running out of gas while traversing and re-traversing the three mountains of Tobago in our rental vehicle, all because we opted not to get gas at the real gas station where the pay-at-the-pump mechanism was out of order and we chose instead to head for yonder town which boasted a large colorful gas station symbol on the map we were consulting and then when we arrived, there was no gas available at all in the end-of-the-island town, neither from the two derelict pumps at a woebegone station nor from the gas cans of the Tobagonian men lolling beside their pick-ups at the edge of the street.
We're the helpless and hopeless couple you could have shaken your head over as we sat in our neon green Ford Focus, focusing on our parking spot dilemma on a steep hill in Germany. (Why do the ditzies seem to overtake us in rentals during trips to foreign countries??) We were nosed downward at an alarming angle and for some long and tense and scary minutes, before the driver had the presence of mind to use the emergency brake to his advantage, neither of us could remember how to maneuver a stickshift vehicle up a hill in reverse without rolling ahead (and therefore potentially crashing into the vehicle parked ahead of us) when releasing the clutch...
We're the mister-n-missus you could've watched outside after dark, scooping up tiny pieces of oven door glass from a trail on the laneway because the missus had dragged her heavy-with-rubble garbage bag over the gravel on her way to the dumpster not realizing the bits of broken glass were spilling out of a hole worn through the plastic bag and the mister was implored and employed in clean-up rescue efforts and even though they were two lovers side by side in the moonlight I betcha they weren't out there whispering sweet nothings to each other.
Yeah, we've done some pretty stupid things over the years, where we look back and say "That was dumb; we shoulda known better", but we've also gotten ourselves into situations where clearly our lives were at stake. Like the time we walked across the bay ice in Parry Sound where there had been open water just days earlier. Or the time we were in the kitchen removing an old electrical appliance to replace with a new one, involving the use of a table knife to pry the plug out and not thinking to flip the breaker to "off" first. The sparks flew, alright, and let's just say that they weren't exactly the romantic kind.
In spite of all this craziness, believe it or not, your ditziest couple has managed to stay alive and stay together for 35 years. Thirty-five years! (As my sister-in-law Sharon says, "Now that is a long time!") Ken and I got married all those years ago on October 22, right in the thick of apple harvest, ensuring that in all the years to follow, we would rarely be able to get away for an anniversary jaunt exactly on - or even near - our wedding date.
Last year on our anniversary outing we went to the charming town of Niagara-on-the-Lake in December and took in a play, A Christmas Carol, at the old, intimate Royal George theater on Main Street. We got there with not much time to spare, just enough to use the washroom before heading into the auditorium to get settled in our balcony seats before the curtains opened on the performance.
Except that just as we reached the theater entrance, a very prominent sign on the outside door caught our attention. No Public Washrooms, it boldly proclaimed. Well, that's a fine how-do-you-do, we thought. How can that be? Are the theater restrooms undergoing renovations? Is the theater so ancient and tiny that there weren't ever provisions made for normal, washroom-needy theater attendees? How very odd, we thought. This is where we may be entering ditzland, we should have thought. But we didn't.
So there we were on the sidewalk, Dani the Upholder, aka rule-follower, along with Ken the Questioner, aka rule-confronter. But both of us "had to go"; we were a couple in search-for-a-bathroom mode and we clearly weren't going to be finding one in this building, so we went next door to the nearest available building, which happened to be the theater box office, where the same type of sign was boldly posted. We went therein, anyway, to ask where the nearest public restrooms were. (IF indeed there were any usable restrooms to be had in the whole of Niagara-on-the-Lake: un-added part of question)
A few blocks down the street, the ticket officer said, so we headed that way, more puzzled and consternated than before. Could we actually trek down to the clock tower, discover the public restrooms in that vicinity, use the facilities, and hike back up to the theater before A Christmas Carol began?
We had to walk fast and I felt my annoyance growing apace with a stitch in my side. So dumb, I thought, that we had to mess up the start of our romantic outing with an unexpected glitch like this. Thing was, I didn't know whom to blame.
It wasn't until intermission that I found out who was at fault. It was us two, being the ditzy couple again! After the customary dismissal announcement halfway through the play, a bunch of people around us filed downstairs to purchase refreshments and/or to use the washrooms! Only then did we realize our misunderstanding of the sign outside the front entrance. It didn't mean that there were no restrooms in the building, it meant that the restrooms were available only to ticket-purchasing patrons of the theater. Well, duh on ditzy us!
And so, in reflecting upon these ditzy matters at anniversary time, I wrote a little poem, an Ode to Us, on our Thirty-fifth, in which I altered the meaning of ode slightly, from "a poem meant to be sung" to "a poem meant to be swung", but you may do as you wish:
Back when we began this waltz
our skill was rather fritz-y.
Of graceful moves we didn't
know the nitty grits. We
stumbled on as happy klutzes
full of feeling, flit-sy.
Neither one of us fit the shoe, not
being glam or glitzy
and somehow through the flitting years we
never got more ritzy.
(Still, despite my tangled steps,
surprisingly, he gits me.)
I watch some others glide with grace
and charm, all perfectness lock-fits-key;
I could allow that envy asks
if we should call it quits? We
pause, instead, mid-swing (or -lurch?)
and then it hits me:
there's truly no one else with whom
I'd rather dance the ditz. See?
Happy 35th Anniversary to us! Praises be to God, who led us together in the first place and has kept us together in all the places since. May He continue to bless, sanctify, and preserve us.
