Published: January 22, 2008 03:02 am            

Juggling groceries in the driveway

It was scene made for my neighborhood, divinely created for me and the ultimate enjoyment of everyone watching — if not more appropriately for every golfer who has ever struggled with the second shot on Hole No. 6 on the Hills Course.

I’ve paid penance now. My slate is clean for everything I have ever said or written about the “strike-out-swinging” golfer just trying to get that second shot over the water. I say to you right now. It is human nature, if not bad golf, to dig in harder, dip that right shoulder, rear back with the left and personally achieve loft to get the shot just right. And, I’ve seen more than one miss.

I have alternately laughed, cringed, sympathized and cheered-on the golfer who finds “shimself” (that's chic for him or her) in my back yard with dogs barking and partners looking stern and unforgiving.

So, New Year’s Eve, as I prepared to offload groceries that I had purchased in a borrowed SUV belonging to Number Two Son, I paid in full.

Get this picture. My driveway is steep, and the groceries shifted as I did the quick dash into my driveway (defying the speed-racers coming over the hill at Water’s Edge). So consumed with personal survival that I didn’t even notice the shift, I briskly stepped out of the luxury vehicle and into the nightmare that was sure to delight the world that I so enjoy being on the top of.

Hearing the rumble of shifting cargo, I ignored the warning, knowing that I could handle it, and opened the back. Before I could behold the enormity of my mistake, disaster struck me from one source — and 12 different directions and speeds.

Diet Cokes (Dr. Wells would be pleased), decaffeinated (even more pleasing), came at me in a rush. They fell one at a time, allowing me just enough time to address each of them in a flash.

With lightening speed, I bent to address one, kicked the next one, applied a swift soccer action on another and on and on.

As I would direct one back up the hill, another would come back to me bouncing and rolling at a demon pace — no doubt trying to make it to the street before Dick Cording could pass in his North Carolina blue golf cart. It was like the juggler keeping a dozen balls in the air at once — further complicated by the hill, the grit of the surface, the rolling uncertainty of direction and I was certain my neighbors standing spellbound inside their homes, in their cars and golf carts, walking and flying above.

Get this, though. Even as I fought the battle that I was sure to lose, I understood the comedy unfolding. I knew it was funny, but I couldn’t stop. I knew that every pratfall that I had ever witnessed LMAO (ask the text-messengers or any child over four years) was revisiting me at that very moment.

It occurred to me that my neighbors would instantly know that I wasn’t already drunk before dark on the party-goers amateur night, because nobody “in their drink” could possible be as nimble and coordinated as I was being.

Or, as my second thought struck me with horrifying clarity, they knew I was already drunk or I wouldn’t be carrying on in such a manner in my very own driveway in bright sunlight.

Whichever, I decided, the spectacle was every bit as entertaining as that $300 night at the Hilton or $1,000 extravagance on Times Square. I just hope everybody gave the occasion significant play in their evening. If I have to say so my own self, that foot action where I turned and addressed the rolling missile with the inside of my foot, classic soccer style, was pretty nifty.

What wasn’t so pretty was Hero’s failure to respond to the emergency. After I had successfully corralled all but the one residing temporarily in the middle of Brook Hollow (it was really cool, spinning and tumbling wildly all over the place), Hero stuck his head out the door and way too casually inquired, “Need any help?”

You don’t even want to know!

Point made, I paid for laughing at the one who twice whiffed before connecting solidly and walking off as though he was making the victory walk at the Masters.

I paid for calling the entire family together to watch Barbara Bright tear my bad dog Smoke off her little white dog in abject fear for his life. And, I paid for enjoying too much the body language of Hero as he was trying to set the water sprinkler in his only summer suit.

I hope a good time was had by all. And, I really hope everybody within these pages has a wonderful 2008.

I know it’s going to be a good year. A world with that much comedy in it can't possibly be a bad place.

What do you think? Let’s do this year fancy. Shall we?

        

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