Domestic Tranquility

A few days ago, I got a big scratch on the side of my head from a tree branch. Primarily because of the absurd nature of this accident and the additionally absurd lack of hair on my head, the mark it left was cause for a great many conversations. "What happened to you?" was how most of them started. It didn't take long before I grew tired of the mundane details of my collision with a shrub that I had avoided successfully for years but suddenly fell victim. I started making up answers. Especially for kids: "I was in a knife fight." "I was wrestling with a bear. You should see the bear." To which most of the listeners, old and young, replied, "No. Really."
Then, to my surprise, several of my co-workers and friends went to a place I hadn't anticipated. "Did you get into a fight with your wife?" The thought that my wife might come after me with a tree branch, or a knife, or even an angry bear never figured into my equation. While it is true that in many ways my life can resemble a situation comedy, the very cartoon-ish image of my bride attacking me with a frying pan or any other household implement struck me as quite absurd. It made me happy to imagine myself in such a functional relationship.
A couple in San Francisco wasn't quite as fortunate. It seems that when hubby came home at seven in the morning, the missus met him at the door with a small caliber handgun and shot him once. Realizing their situation had now escalated into the realm of felony, on the way to the hospital they constructed a tale of a drive-by shooting. Such events are not unheard of in south San Francisco, but the couple were unable to keep their stories straight under routine questioning. She was hauled off to jail for attempted murder, felony assault with a firearm and felony domestic violence. I think they would have been better off if they had stuck with the rabid bear story.