Mario’s secret

Mario strolled the sands of a Mediterranean beach, girls flocking around him.  Roberto, envious of his friend, and obviously missing out on the same success walked up to Mario.  “How do you get all of these women?” he asked.

“Slip a potato in your Speedos,” Mario unabashedly told him.

Next day on the ocean, after doing exactly what his friend told him, Roberto still attracted no women.  He walked, a little awkwardly, over to his friend and said, “Mario, I did what you told me.”

Mario took one look at Roberto.  “In the front, Stupid.”

Do you know how easy it is just to be slightly off?  To get it almost right, yet get it wrong?

My mom loved to tell me about the time my aunt dressed my baby cousin up in a frilly red and white dress with lots of organdy petticoats.  You know how dads like to throw their baby girls up in the air and catch them on the way down.  When my uncle did, he found my aunt had forgotten something – a diaper.

There was the time I’d painstakingly made sure all four children were clean, hair combed, and dressed in color coordinated outfits for a family portrait.  I’d even invited my ex-husband to participate, thinking that when the kids grew up they might somehow forget they were raised by a single mom.  Everyone sat in their assigned seats and smiled for the photographer.  When the 8X10’s were delivered, only then did I realize I’d left a couple of pink sponge rollers in my hair and forgot to brush the ringlets out. 

Things haven’t changed.  By this age I should be able to get it all together without missing one crucial detail.  Just last week I’d used the restroom at work, carefully checked my hair and my makeup before exiting, only to have a male co-worker in the hall tap me on the shoulder.  “I thought you’d want to know,” he said, “that your skirt is tucked up in the back.” 

What are the chances that the next day he’d need my help on the computer.  I played it cool.  Maybe he’d forgotten.  (Yeah, like anyone easily forgets visual horror they’ve experienced.)  But when I got up from his chair after creating a complex Microsoft Excel formula, I stepped on my own skirt and nearly pulled it off. 

I’ve decided it’s always gonna be one thing or another.  How Mario got it right I’d never know.  After all, it’s a secret.