i am no ike turner

Mrs. Camino and I have always been accident prone. We are both generally aloof and unaware when pets or furniture wander into our path, and we often bear the bruises to prove it. Just the other night I hit myself in the head with the car door, and Mrs. Camino has actually stepped on the rake end of a rake and endured the ensuing painful, yet cartoonish thwack. The blessing of a large and battering ram like head has helped me survive most of these encounters, but my lovely wife sometimes requires medical attention.

She was cleaning out the garage on Saturday when a pickaxe fell from the wall and struck her on the back of the head. It was the non-business end but still substantial enough and traveling at a sufficient velocity to inflict some pain. There appeared to be no bruising or swelling, and Mrs. Camino went about the rest of her day.

She went to work on Sunday afternoon but had begun to feel some dizziness and nausea. I took her to the hospital to get things checked out and make sure there was no internal damage, and the doctor found nothing on the x-rays. He thinks that it might have been a mild concussion, but it didn't seem to be anything significant. She is back at work and feeling better today.

However, she noticed that each of the nurses who took her from room to room asked about her accident. She would repeat the details of cleaning the garage and having the pickaxe fall, but something about the nurses and their inquiries gave her the slight impression that they were checking for spousal abuse.

I am her spouse, obviously, and this worries me a bit. She was accident prone as a child, and her parents had to endure many of the same suspicions when she would show up to class with a black eye, but there is something much worse about showing up at work with noticeable bruising. No one ever looks at her suspiciously when I am bruised, but it is an understandable double-standard.

It will probably be a good idea to have our children live in plastic bubbles.

I say all this just to let you know that I would never lay a hand on Mrs. Camino. I am much larger and could easily take her, but she fights dirty and is able to hold a grudge for quite some time.