When Dignity Takes a Fall

A moment when my dignity took a fall happened a few years back. It all started like this: my family and I went out to eat at a popular restaurant after church. Other people had the same idea so we had to put our name on a waiting list for a table.

Along one side of the long hallway where people sit to wait are a couple of checkerboards. You know the kind…the table is painted in black and red squares with over-sized checkers. Uniquely, the chairs are those old-time wood Pepsi Cola cartons. Two of them stacked together make a low seat for the low table (and, come to think of it, are probably placed there with children in mind.)  Sara sat demurely on one such seat and I confidently lowered myself onto the other across from her. Only thing was, my two Pepsi cartons weren’t fitting together that well. The top one slid as did I.  

I could no more stop myself from falling than I could stop–well–the force of gravity. So, my posterior hit the floor in slow motion and I found myself gazing up at a distinguished-looking gentleman with white hair and mustache. He gallantly offered his hand. It was either that or step over me since I landed at his feet.  He hauled me to an upright position.  That would have been the ideal time to feign great injury and pretend to faint. That way I might have generated more sympathy than merriment. But, alas, I didn’t think quickly enough.

At least, I provided a moment of levity for the long line of waiting diners. My son and daughter-in-law came to check that nothing was broken then returned to their place in line but not before I heard a few smothered giggles. At times like these, one draws one’s tattered garment of dignity about one’s shoulders and climbs back on the Pepsi cartons to resume the checker game.