LJ Idol - Week 2 - The Missing Stair
Impetuous.
My ex-husband used to spit that word at me when he was disappointed with something I'd gone and done, without really thinking it through from Point A - I ate berries off a bush in the woods behind my in-laws house...to Point B - My stomach was starting to hurt and I was thirty miles from a doctor and a little concerned I'd poisoned myself and was going to suffer a foaming-at-the-mouth death as my muscles stiffened and my father-in-law stood over me, shaking his head at my stupidity. I don't even know if that is what berry poisoning does to you, but I was sure it was about to happen to me. (I was fine by the way, I KNEW they were elderberries!)
The label makes me angry because I know he is right though. I DO have moments of ill-thought out madness that occasionally cause mayhem. May I point the finger at my mother, who was a rather strict disciplinarian? I mean, her friends called her Hitler when they saw how she kept my brother and I on a leash - figuratively, she was not, thank God, one of those moms with an actual child leash. After 18 years of that, you are bound to have some breaks in good sense. Look before you leap has never been my M.O.
As a very early example to place in the evidence bag, I'd like to point out Exhibit A, Christmas, 1995, senior year of high school.
My mom had dragged me to the mall to go shopping. This was before the reign of the Internet, so there was no stay-at-home and shop off Amazon.com and eBay if you wanted to avoid the crowds option. Malls were hot in the 90's, especially around the holidays, and this one was insanely crowded. We had wandered from one end to the other all day, shuffling along with the other shoppers, tinny speakers piping in Madonna's Santa Baby and Mariah Carey wanting nothing for Christmas but youuuuu, repeated hypnotically every 45 minutes until our eyes were glassy and wallets bare.
I was at the end of my shopping rope, tired and hungry and my feet really hurt, when my mom finally announced, just minutes before the mall closed, that we could leave. I couldn't have been more ready. We needed to go up two levels to get back to parking deck. As we rounded the corner by the food court, I saw the Up escalator with relief, rising to the next floor like a shiny metal stairway to Heaven. And then I saw the line of people waiting just to step onto it, as if trapped in Dante's limbo, so packed it was with a full load of shoppers. Those people were slowing my flight from this holiday hell!
The Down escalator however, it didn't have a soul on it. The impetuous trigger in my brain went off. Blame it on the hours of Nike ads blaring from every Foot Locker and Payless in the mall, but the empty escalator steps called to me with their spareness.
"Come on up, Lisa...just DO it!"
If I ran UP the Down escalator, I wouldn't have to wait at all!
Moments like this have to be grabbed immediately or they will be gone - someone could step on the Down escalator at any moment blocking my path or a security guard might come around the corner and then all would be lost! I glanced at my mom and dropped my bags. "Meet you at the top!" I crowed and ran at breakneck speed, launching myself onto the Down escalator, ready to run to the top, leaving the waiting throngs in my dust.
As I leaped, I had enough time to glimpse the shining red and green of massive plastic ornaments hung from the ceiling above me, the startled looks of the crowd on the Up escalator as I flew past- 'So long, suckers!' - and then I saw with horror the empty space where I'd anticipated a metal step to be, but was not, just moments before I crash landed and rolled back to the bottom, the nightmare-inducing metal lip of the escalator catching my coat and trying to suck me under. Ouch.
I lay there, crumpled shopping mall roadkill for a stunned moment before startled murmurings and a shout from my mom brought me back to my senses. Ego before injury, I was just 17, I jumped up and held my arms high above my head.
"Do NOT try this at home!" I called to the Up escalator riders, blushing scarlet but attempting to look cool.
The people actually started to clap for me, so I took a sweeping bow and blew a giant kiss at them before walking painfully back to my furious mother.
Grabbing my arm, she wheeled me around.
"Let's GO!" she muttered through gritted teeth "Have you learned your lesson?"
Apparently not, mama. Apparently not.