January 31, 2015

"Now listen carefully because I have something important to tell you," he says, fixing me in his steely gaze, his eyes nearly glowing black from the screen. "Yeah, you've got to slow down and watch where you're going and expect the unexpected," and unexpectedly he rolls his eyes and interjects, "whatever that means. But what I'm going to tell you now is just as important as any one of those three."

He's right, of course, but that's no surprise because he's always right which is why I almost always repeat the big three anytime I perambulate these days because I know I fail to do so at my peril. I realize as does he, I hope, that he is almost surely a figment of my imagination, but hey, we should all be so lucky as to have seen enough old movies to have the image of William Powell in My Man Godfrey as our guardian angel. So I'm not kicking, no sir, not one bit. In fact, as night falls I'm listening very carefully.

I'm sitting in the dark now as twilight has taken the sky outside my window. I decide that I am overdue for the cup of coffee I promised myself as I walked groggily around the block earlier after that ill-advised afternoon nap. So up I stand and slow down and watch where I am going and expect the unexpected until finally in the kitchen I must say: Godfrey my boy, you're always with me. To which he responds, in his not-quite-wise-guy voice, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you one more thing."

"I don't want to get all bossy on you or anything," says Godfrey, who is the furthest thing from a winged guardian angel, rather resembling either a super dapper man or unshaven bum, depending on the movie, and in any event is constitutionally indisposed to telling anyone, least of all one of his charges (umm, that would be me) what to do, preferring instead the gentle guidance of a hand on the shoulder, a quiet patter into my left ear. "Because," says Godfrey, "the Boss doesn't think it's in your interest to think that I'll be there to bail your sorry rear end out of trouble every time you perambulate toward a door or get up to walk across a darkened room or navigate some icy sidewalks."

So here's the thing: That night last weekend when I was walking toward the entryway door, I was eating a cookie, so I didn't feel Godfrey's hand on my shoulder like I might have, and whoop! down I went, my left leg folded under me, on the landing floor. The cause: distracted walking, or doing more than one thing at a time. As Godfrey would say, anytime you have anything going on that distracts you from the big three (slow down, watch where you're going, expect the unexpected), you're asking for trouble. And so I swear I felt his firm but gentle hand on my shoulder, saw his eyes nearly glowing black from the screen, and I tell you as surely as you can hear my voice in these words, Godfrey fixed his gaze on me and wrapped up our little twilight chat in the kitchen with, "Add this to your list, pal: One thing at a time."