Stunned, I realized I'd knocked myself silly and unconscious. The debilitating pain in my right butt cheek dragged me back to a painful reality. I tried concentrating on the little colorful light orbs illuminating the oscillating fan above me while focusing on not biting my lower lip off my face to keep from screaming in pain. 

The whole house shook from my plunge. I'd surely left a me-sized hole in the floor. The crackling of the compromised flooring reached its veiny fingers to the outside structure and threatened to pull the entirety of the house down upon my body as I trembled in pain. The house quaked in agonizing spasms as it grumbled louder with every second. I was sure I’d broken the third step I’d landed on.

As my head swam and my vision blurred, I tried to remember how I ended up horizontal on my daughters’ floor.

I waited and held my breath, preventing screams from escaping and fearing the inevitable drop of the ceiling (fan and all) onto my immobile body. In that moment of silence, I was suddenly unsure if the house was shuddering in pain or if it was quaking in laughter at my tumble.

Horrifically, I remembered the slip and watched my feet propel upward, reaching toward the heavens. While my feet were entering the Pearly Gates, my head pummeled into the darkness of hell beneath me. This was my Charlie Brown moment.

Holidays often recall stories of holidays, years, and loved ones passed. The recipe usually calls for a pinch of family, a dash of memories, a few cups of alcohol, and voila! So many accounts of the same stories with varying details and endings often depending on the teller.

As I lay in the me-shaped hole, I distinctly remember the laughter around the turkey, cranberry relish, stuffing, and Grandma Betty’s best-ever salad the month before reminiscing about a story that clearly should not have been shared.

The story my tumble drudged up featured a can of Pledge furniture polish, a hardwood floor, two young girls, and my mother’s complaints of what she thought was a broken tailbone. Like me, she had found herself horizontal—her Charlie Brown moment happened decades before mine.

Upon inspection after her “spill,” she concluded someone had Pledged the hardwood floor at the bottom of the carpeted stairs. The lemon scent and oily residue were telltale signs. My mother would fly down these stairs a few times daily, wearing nothing but the blue disposable paper socks favored by real estate agents who show off high-priced homes. She often took her safe travels for granted.

Let me explain. I grew up in a museum. Every piece of fine gold-plated China or silver serving tray was dusted weekly by the staff (and by staff, I mean the three daughters of the house at the end of Caballo Trail). In this house, antique baroque furniture was polished until it shined proudly. Taxidermy mounts—elk, deer, and pigs—witnessed things in this museum, and to this day, they have not spilled their secrets. Shoes were not permitted in the museum, but neither were bare feet—the oils destroy carpet and leave impeccably clean hardwood floors looking dull and dirty.

I did not participate in the booty nonsense; I refused to take steps further than wearing my anklet socks while shoeless. In defiance, I'd often run through the museum with my tennis shoes on, with only a silenced javelina or white-tailed deer around to witness my blatant disregard. I'd often throw a size 10 pair of feet WITH SHOES ON over the armrest of my mother's custom-upholstered couches while eating outside the kitchen (another No-No). My rebellion went undiscovered for years! What the curator—AKA my mother—didn't know couldn't hurt her!

The pain in my right rear jerked me back into reality. The oscillating fan above me laughed with every revolution. As I regained my faculties, the clean lemon scent of Pledge started permeating my senses.

Clearly, this was an intentional act of terror. A terrorist beneath MY roof! As done to my mother, now had been done to me. However, the Karmic retribution doled out did not land on the appropriate guilty parties. I had no part in the Pledging incidents in the museum, and I made a point to mention my innocence during the recent unearthing of this memory around the Thanksgiving table.

As the offending stairs lead from my children's game room to the room my two girls occupied, I deduced that I was not the intended victim. The culprit surely was one or both of their brothers.

I let out a wail and felt the house either join in my cries of pain or its harder laughter—I’m not sure which. Its convulsions felt like an earthquake, threatening to swallow me deeper into my hole. 

Howling again, I waited for my sympathetic husband to rush to my aid and scoop my broken frame off the broken floor. 

The harder I cried, the stronger the house shuddered, mocking me. I bellowed louder and louder. The house grumbled until I realized the shuddering was actually my entire family running from all directions; all 5 of them. When they arrived, they looked down at me as if I were at the bottom of a football huddle, looking up at my team. Some of my team was confused by the calamity and some were eager to see who they’d caught in their trap, a tinge of silent guilt in their eyes. 

The catastrophe left me with a black bruise the size of a frisbee. The bruise went through its healing process from black to a beautiful bright peacock purple to blue, green, and an ugly hard-boiled yolky egg-looking color, I realized the “accident” had atrophied my right butt cheek. The deficit lasted over a year.

Looking back, I am sure Charles Schultz’s inspiration for Linus or Charlie Brown taking a digger in the snow during A Charlie Brown Christmas was birthed from the lemon-fresh scent of Pine-Sol hardwood cleaner.

As a Christian, raised Catholic, I believe wholeheartedly in penance and retribution—these aspects are engrained in my being. However, I will patiently sit back and wait for Karma to take its place center stage. I have made my popcorn and found my seat, but if those Buddhists don’t put a move on it, I will be happy to hop up, hit fast forward, and get the show on the road.

I love hard, forgive rarely, and try to be a good person daily, but mostly because I hate apologizing. I believe we all have one judge. God knows I’m a sinner, and he expects my flawed body to Pledge a floor now and again. I will answer for my sins and try daily to live life in the light of Christ. Every morning I wake up and pray for a good day. If I cannot have a good day, I will make my popcorn, find my seat, and apologize in advance as I “pledge” to make the best of what I am given.