The way the husband talks, you’d think I was a racehorse.
“Pace yourself!” he says. “Pace yourself.”
He says I move too fast. I’ve yet to beat a thoroughbred, but he could have a point.
The other night I was invited to watch a movie outdoors with several friends on a patio. When the movie was over, I was the first to start carrying snack bowls into the house. I flung aside the screen to the sliding door and charged directly into the glass.
A gal coming behind me saw it, chuckled, and said she wouldn’t mention it to the others.
She didn’t have to. They heard it.
SMACK!
I’ve tried slowing down but it feels like a car that idles rough.
Our girls get on me for not drying dishes thoroughly. “Why waste time with a towel doing what the air will do naturally?” I ask, dropping a wet spatula into the utensil crock.
I’ve also been told to stop jumping on the counter to get at the top shelves. I should go get a ladder. I’ve gotten what I wanted, am off the counter and revving up the mixer by the time someone else finds the ladder.
Because I walk fast, I shop fast. That’s how we came to own two large bottles of bodywash that we will never use. I thought I’d finally found large refill bottles of liquid hand soap. Speed also enables me to score avocados that are rock hard and tomatoes that are mush.
Moving fast has brought me a life filled with color. I often sport a big black and blue mark on my left arm from clipping the side view mirror on the SUV as I speed by it to dump a bag of trash in the garage.
I return inside moaning and holding my shoulder. “Pace yourself,” he says again. It’s like a Ring Doorbell that constantly chimes.
Speed has also enabled me to be at the front of the pack doing word scrambles.
APCE SEFLYOUR
I will admit that a penchant for speed as a writer can result in typoes and gramatcal errs. I can bring retired English teachers to tears.
The husband, who is moderately paced, was frantically dashing about the house the other day, flying in and out, racing up and down the stairs.
After a career in newspapers, he took an early retirement buyout several years ago and has been living the easy life.
“Why are you in such a hurry?” I asked.
“I’m on deadline,” he said.
“What’s your deadline?”
“Death.”
Perfect. The man has just given me a defense for moving quickly. I’m on deadline, too. We’re all on deadline, which is why I will continue to stand, or walk briskly, in defense of speed.
One final nugget before I close my case: Secretariat wasn’t a Triple Crown Winner because he moved slow.