The Wrong Side of the Bed

“Son, never get up on the wrong side of the bed.” Mama

I knew it was going to be a bad day even before I walked into my office. The wilted and lifeless roses greeted me, with Sir Winston starring down his Churchill nose at my presence.

It began this morning when I ignored Mama’s sage advice, paying dearly for the error. I pleaded ignorance, of course, claiming, “Which is the wrong side, the right side, of a bed?” Silence and a sullen stare was Mama’s answer.

All malefactors plead innocent. Not so…once the deed is done, it’s done. And since one can apparently only get out of bed once a day, caution is commended. So Mama said. She was never wrong.

The “Retribution gods” were relentless. A dull razor minced my face, band aids everywhere. And do you have a clue of what it’s like not being able to find the “right” part in the hair? Public humiliation occurs. It was always a mystery to me how the public knew these things. Yet Mama said they did. Who can contend with such wisdom?

Forget that the coffee spilled on the sofa and the cereal was stale. Even the tab to open the half-half cream malfunctioned. It seemed to mock me even as I cursed it. What idiot invents these torments…from which side of the bed did they slither? The knife made quick work, but “Ouch,” my finger said. Another band aid.

Then there’s the decision of matching ten shirt colors to trousers. You know, some days nothing matches. “No stripes with plaids,” Mama always said. Discretion was abandoned…besides, I thought the lavender-striped shirt blended well with plaid pants. Apparently not, as I later found out from the giggling ladies in the elevator. (Mama was right again!)

Even my shoes seemed to echo Mama’s voice, “Son, don’t start out on the wrong foot.”
“But Mama, can you explain to me which is right and which is wrong?”
“You’ll know, son…stop asking stupid questions.” Now what kind of an answer is that, really? Was your Mama like that?

Her voice followed me as I left, “Son, don’t hang out with the wrong crowd.” I muttered under my breath an obscene expletive…mistake! The Retribution gods heard it. The day got worse, not to mention the crowd. Apparently some of the meeting participants had suffered a fate similar to my own, judging from their glazed eyes, band aids and violation of decorous dress codes.

There’s more. I slogged through the day, distracted by on the brown zit of a coffee stain on my shirt. Judging from the sneers and snickers in the restaurant, I had apparently reflected poorly on my family’s heritage. Was it my dress or the Stooges hair part that gave me away? Or perhaps my attitude when the valet advised me they’d “misplaced” my car? Whichever…. I tried to put it all out of my mind.

Rational decisions are difficult when you get up on the wrong side of the bed, or start out on the wrong foot. The choice for dinner was miso soup or tacos. You know which won, right? Throughout the night the tacos laughed uncontrollably. In utter frustration I shook my fists to the heavens, shouting, “Well, Mama, so much for your warning to ‘clean your plate, young man.’” Did your Mama treat you so shamefully?

Mama was mostly right, not wrong, about the difference between right, and wrong. I swore to obey from then on, sorta. Since backsliding was in my nature, I crossed my fingers just in case of failure. You do the same thing, don’t you?

It’s anybody’s guess how long the Retribution gods hang around, so I decided to take no chances tonight and bed down on the sofa. Why? It has only one way in, one way out. I played the odds….how can I go wrong? Mama didn’t raise a fool!

There is no moral here, only a caveat…Mama is always right!


Bud Hearn
April 23, 2009