My Groundhog Day

The daily prompt for today is to describe my own Groundhog Day.

I don’t know. It would be easier to describe a day that I didn’t mess up, put my foot in it, or otherwise wish I could do over. But I already wrote that post.

All my big life events led to where I am now, and I’m just fine with that. There’s not one precise day that would have been pivotal for any of them, anyway.

No, the things that come to mind are delayed reactions. When I was young–about six or seven–and someone said something nasty, I’d be taken aback, but a few moments later I knew exactly how to respond. So I’d ask the person in question to repeat what they had said to me. They usually obliged, bemusedly, and then I knocked ’em dead with my comeback.

My groundhog days would be like that: all the times that, looking back, I could have said or done something and didn’t.

Like the time years ago when T and I were stuck on a boat with a guy who kept making racist remarks. Talking to him, arguing even, had proved useless, so I ended up pretending not to hear his Obama jabs. It was sickening, though. Days later I knew what I would have liked to do:

I’d get up and say, “Okay, that’s it. I’m done with this guy. T, you can pick me up at that restaurant over there whenever you’re ready,” and I’d dive overboard. I’d swim a perfect freestyle to the restaurant that we just happened to be passing by on the party lake.  When I got there, I’d climb up the little steel ladder and . . .

. . . probably faint from the effort. Freestyle always gets me out of breath, but there’s no way I’d stop or switch to backstroke; that wouldn’t be cool. So pride would make me swim a non-stop freestyle to the restaurant, but once there, I’d have to spend fifteen minutes catching my breath.

An obese woman in a bathing suit, looking like she’s about to have a heart attack. People would gather around, asking, “Ma’am, are you okay? Do you want me to call an ambulance?” Not cool at all.

So I’d do that day over and over until I was in good enough shape to swim to the ladder without even getting my heartbeat up. By then I wouldn’t look too bad, either.

I’d get up and say, “Okay, that’s it. I’m done with this guy. T, you can pick me up at that restaurant over there whenever you’re ready,” and I’d dive overboard. I’d swim a kick-ass freestyle to the restaurant that we just happened to be passing by on the party lake.

When I got there, I’d climb up the little steel ladder and here you have to picture a slow motion shot of Bo Derek in 10, only older, with shorter legs, shorter hair, not blond, but way, way smarter.

I’d stride my pissed-off stride straight to the bar, where the bar tender is desperately trying to pick up his jaw. I’d slap the counter and say, “I’ll have a top-shelf Margarita, please, and I’m starting a tab.”

Oh yeah!