"Exactly!"
by Eric Miller
“So,
what’s bothering you?,” my wife asked.
“Pretty
much everything,” I replied.
“And how
do you feel about that?” she pressed.
“That?
Which that? I have feelings about everything.
About which feeling, exactly, do you want to know
how I feel?"
“The same
one I’m feeling about you.”
“I
can’t know what you’re feeling unless
you tell me,” I stated.
“Exactly!,”
she exclaimed.
“I’m
just feeling flat,” I replied,
nonspecifically.
“Well,
that’s no surprise. You’ve been a
vegetable ever since you retired. You don’t
try new things,” she barked.
“Ouch,
must you be so blunt?,” I cried, ducking and
putting my hands over my head for protection.
“You need
a totally new experience to kick start your
kicker. I know exactly what you need. Leave it to
me.”
What she
thought I needed was something to pull me from
the depths of vegetating and to lift me to the
heights of European culture and art. That
something turned out to be an opera, in Italian
of course.
I did find it
to be quite an impressive spectacle. We sat right
in the center of the first row, so the view was
fabulous, but the front row I found out quickly
was the worst place from which to read scrolling
super-titles above the stage. I had to lean my
head way back to see them. Not only did I know
that it was an unnatural position, but more
importantly my body knew it. It fought me tooth
and nail to keep my head straight, rather than
let it tilt back. I, of course, fought my body
tooth and nail to tilt my head so I could read
the translation. My body would have none of it,
so it threw a spasm tantrum and locked my head in
the tilted position. There I was with my head at
a right angle to my torso, almost resting in the
lap of the lady behind me, while I stared at the
ceiling. I wanted to scream for help, but I
didn’t want to interrupt the performance. So
I just remained in that position, until the woman
behind me began to make a fuss that I was a
pervert.
Immediately, a
baritone on the stage began to sing
“perverto, perverto,” soon to be
joined by the rest of the cast. Then I heard the
pounding of feet on what I assumed was the dance
floor of my self-esteem.
Suddenly, I
felt hands sliding under me, picking me up, and
carrying me. In seconds, I was sitting in a high
back chair on the stage. The cast switched to
singing “Chiropracto, Chiropracto,”
and then they began to sing “La donna è
mobile,” which I assumed meant that I
needed to be immobilized.
To my surprise,
I was just left in that high back chair until the
end of the show. As the curtain rose for the cast
to take its bow, I was pushed to the front of the
stage in my chair, from where I received a
standing ovation.
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