Personal Voice

Ben had gotten out of bed to use the bathroom and had been gone a long time. Mary heard a crash and wondered if he had gone to check on what it was. She was really getting concerned and was about to go check on him when he came stumbling back to bed.

“You were gone a long time,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” Ben answered, dropping into bed. “Let’s just sleep now.”

The next morning, he slept in and didn’t get up until Mary had breakfast ready. He came wandering out bleary-eyed.

“So, do I get to hear what happened last night?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “But I feel kind of stupid.”

Ben told her he had gotten up to use the bathroom. When he finished, he was feeling a little hungry, so he thought he’d grab a quick snack from the brownie pan he knew was on the counter.

“But when I passed the stove, I saw it said 350. I remembered that I had cooked the meatloaf the night before, and remembered you told me to always make sure to shut the oven off. I went over to shut it off. I didn’t want to turn the light on because I was sure that if I did, it would make it so my brain was awake all night. I thought the light from the stove’s digital display would be enough.”

He said he punched all sorts of buttons to shut the oven off, but the number didn’t change.

“I considered turning the light on at that point, but I was sure I could still get to sleep better if I didn’t. Yet, I was determined to shut the oven off, so I headed to the breaker box.”

Ben told her that on the way there, he tripped over the giant Teddy bear their daughter, Annie, had left in the middle of the floor.

“Was that the crash I heard?” Mary asked.

“Maybe,” Ben said. “But it might have been one of the later ones, like when I was heading to the garage.”

“What did you go to the garage for?” Mary asked.

Ben said he had made his way to the small breaker box when he remembered that it only had the bedrooms’ breakers. So, he headed to the main breaker in the garage. That was when he stubbed his toe on Annie’s trike.

“When I tried to move the trike out of the road, I tripped over the big Teddy bear again,” Ben said. “I decided I’d better get the dang bear out of the road once and for all. I grabbed it and tossed it toward the couch. That’s when the bear hit the lamp on the end table. That might have been the crash that you heard.”

“Did the lamp break?” Mary asked.

“Yes,” Ben replied. “That’s how I got the glass in my foot when I tried to go around it.”

“You got glass in your foot?” Mary asked.

“Yes. That’s when I finally decided I had to turn a light on so I could see to remove it. I moved toward the light switch, and that’s when I tripped over the trike I had moved. When I fell, I hit the TV stand and knocked the TV off. That also could have been the crash you heard.”

“Did you get the glass out of your foot?” Mary asked.

“Yes, after I got the light on,” Ben replied. “And after I got the glass out, since I had the light on, I decided to shut off the oven. That’s when I saw the stove said 4:32. I suddenly realized there had been a colon there before, too, and it wasn’t the oven that was on. It was the stupid clock.”