Not the way I want to go

I’m an early riser. 5:00AM, generally. I have my clothes ready on a small table near the bed. Underpants, undershirt, pants, shirt, socks. The first thing I do when I get out of bed is to walk to the aforementioned table and reach for my underwear. I raise a leg up—always my right leg for some reason—and, balanced on my left, insert it into the underwear. Then, standing on my right leg, I insert the left leg into my underwear. Process completed. Nothing different than what millions of people do every day.

If all goes according to plan.

This morning, it did not. When I raised my leg high to go into the underwear, my foot got caught on the underwear’s edge. It was wedged between two toes. I was stuck, and I began losing my balance. I started hopping to regain it. As anyone knows who has tried to hop on one foot, it’s increasingly difficult to control the direction or velocity of the hop. I hopped and hopped, foot stuck in my underwear, around the room, until the hopping took me to a point where being vertical was no longer tenable. This seems right out of a Charlie Chaplin movie, only it was no cinema.

Warning! Danger!

Everything went into slow motion at that point. It was as if I were watching myself, one hand holding the underwear’s edge tightly, and then, foot caught, I was falling, falling, falling. No one was going to catch me. So, I fell. Fortunately, the floor in my bedroom is carpeted. Still, a senior falling from the upright position to a horizontal position on the floor can have unforeseen consequences. This morning, my left shoulder and the top of my left arm hit the floor first. I probably bounced a bit. I know it hurt. I didn’t break any bones. I was just bruised.

This time.

But what about next time? As I get older and older, I am more susceptible to this kind of mishap. Consequently, to injury. To a fall in which I break a bone. Or even crash my head against the wall.

I imagine an obituary would read something like this:

BIZARRE UNDERGARMENT FATALITY

Richard Goodman, 79, died Thursday. Goodman, in the process of trying to put on his underwear, apparently got caught up in the garment and suffered a fall, striking his head on the floor, which proved fatal. Goodman’s landlord discovered his body when he came to repair a leaky faucet. “I found him there on the floor, half-in, half-out,” the landlord told police. “Very sad. And odd.”

I don’t want a death that makes people laugh. It’s just too humiliating. I don’t want people to say, “He fell and hit his head after he got tangled in his underwear.” Then laugh. Because, who wouldn’t laugh? I wouldn’t blame you. I just don’t want it to happen to me.

Growing old, I feel sometimes like I’ve become an actor in a farce.

Just give me a normal, not-funny exit.