Menopausal Mother

     For as long as I can remember, my husband has been haunted by the ghost of old injuries. Although I've been dubbed the Queen Of Klutz, my guy has ended up in the emergency room more often than I have. An accident on the baseball field in his teens left him with the knee caps of an eighty-year-old man. They creak and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies Cereal whenever he pushes himself off the couch.
     It doesn't help that this middle-aged man thinks with the brain of a twenty-five-year-old. He never turns down a challenge on the basketball court and will gladly snap on a knee brace just to keep up with the young
whippersnappers. One year when my son's friends gathered in the front yard with their skateboards and BMX bikes to perform stunts, The Hubs didn't want to miss out on all the fun. He assured the boys that he was quite the cyclist in his youth, and that there wasn't a ramp around that he couldn't conquer. Sensing a challenge, the teens goaded The Hubs into reliving his boyhood days one ramp at a time. He swaggered over to the bike with the confidence of Evil Kinevil before hopping on and peddling full force down the street. Up he went, over the ramp, gliding though the air with the glory of youth shining in his eyes.

     And then his feet slipped off the pedals and the bike landed with a resounding thud on the hard pavement. Good thing we were past the procreation stage in our lives since my husband lost his family jewels that day on the BMX bike from hell.

     When my youngest daughter turned eleven, she invited a group of friends over for a slumber party. While the girls ate pizza and watched spooky movies, my husband came up with a brilliant idea that only a prepubescent teenage boy would admire. He donned a rubber monster mask and crept outside to give the girls a little scare. Just as they were settling down into their sleeping bags, The Hubs popped up and pounded on the window to frighten them. The girls shrieked, glass shattered and the "monster" became strangely quiet. That's when I noticed the two, red fountains pulsing from his wrists. My husband had inadvertently sliced both on the broken windowpane and needed immediate medical attention.

    The paramedics found it hard to believe that a middle-aged man would skulk around his own backyard on a Saturday night with a mask. If they'd seen him the week before in a Velcro suit on a Velcro wall at Disney World after too many jello shots, they'd understand.

     Alcohol has always been the liquid courage that prompts men to do stupid things. My husband is no different. After a rousing game of beer pong with a group of college students, my overly confident husband challenged his two, strapping sons to a wrestling match. Oh yes, he was once the captain of the wrestling team in high school. Thirty years ago. Which explains why he ended up face first in a nightstand drawer and woke the next morning to a deviated septum and two black eyes.
   
 There have been countless knee injuries, sprained ankles, sore backs, torn ligaments, broken toes, fingers and black eyes since then. I can't help but wonder if my husband's co-workers have speculated on the nature of our marriage. Menopausal women have tempers, after all.
     At this rate, I'll need to buy stock in Advil or Aleve since arthritis is Mother Nature's revenge on my middle-aged man.
     Time to trade the BMX bike in for a motorized wheelchair.