Tales of clumsy genes and embarrassing pants

David Renzi

Monday, May 5, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

I must have been, what, five or six? Young enough not to know I shouldn't laugh and old enough to have the incident seared in my lumpy brain. Paul and I were walking on the grass of our apartment complex one morning, when we came upon a cement pathway separating this particular patch of green from another.

It was wet from the sprinklers, but Paul -- I called him Dad, Mom called him many things (most of them unprintable) -- braved ahead. He set one foot on the cement, then another. And that's when he just about busted his butt.

His left foot slipped out from under him and he started to fall backward, arms windmilling in a khaki jacket, cigarette clinging for dear life on a wet lip.

Just when I thought he was going down, the innate ability of this remarkable Scotch-drinking, chain-smoking, bowlegged, square-built little athlete kicked in, and he managed to catch his balance and remain upright. He voiced some sharp expletives in his embarrassment, and my laughter stopped immediately.

I recount this incident not because I seek to hold a member of the family up for ridicule, but because I know now where I get it from. "It" being my propensity for the pratfall. News that my mother had recently slipped in some water and fallen on her primordial posterior -- actually hit the deck -- in a local Wal-Mart only confirmed my belief. It's hereditary.

I can trace a litany of incidents from about the second grade, when, on the monkey bars, I had my first encounter with clumsiness. I was gingerly traversing the apparatus, like a sissy Spider-Man, when my feet slipped out from under me and I landed split-legged on the crossbar. Ow.

Fortunately, the ensuing mishaps were only painful to the psyche, such as the time I was working in a movie theater and pulled a Paul in front of a girl I was trying to impress; or this one, my most embarrassing moment:

It happened at the UNLV South Gym, where I had been sent to cover a UNLV women's volleyball game. I was just out of college and had a part-time job at the other paper. I walked through the door and headed to the press table, which was inexplicably sitting on a 2- or 3-foot riser.

There was a chair for me, one for the opposition paper and another for the public-address announcer. I mounted the riser, pulled out the chair, sat down and bellied up to the table, waiting for the game to start.

A few minutes later, it was time for the national anthem. I got up, pushed my chair back and waited for the anthem to end. When it did, I sat on the chair, ignorant of the back legs hanging over the edge...

Lying there on the floor, two volleyball teams and about 50 spectators gathered around me, I so wanted to be badly injured. Or at least knocked unconscious, blissfully unaware of the attempts to conceal their laughter.

But no. My trauma was simple humiliation. Most people who have just suffered the ignominy of doing a back somersault off a riser in a gym full of people would have gotten up and proceeded to walk out, if they were able. Not me. I still had a game to cover.

Luckily, the other reporter never showed, and I avoided the double indignity of ending up in someone's game story.

It's been about 11 years since that day, and I have managed to do a pretty good job staying on my feet and impressing myself and women alike with Astaire-like grace. But just when you think you've got this walking thing down, along comes a day like April 3 to remind you you're not the coolly detached, smooth operator you think you are, Killer Joe.

I had driven to Wally's that morning to have the inside door handle on my Acura replaced. You can normally catch a courtesy shuttle to work, but it was out when I got there, and I didn't feel like waiting, so I started walking, up Desert Inn Road to Valley View Boulevard, where it's about a three-mile shot to the SUN.

We have choices in life, all of us, and we must accept the consequences of the decisions we make. In this case, to walk or ride.

I made the right turn onto Valley View and could see my gym on the corner of Sirius Avenue. I walked briskly and reached the intersection in no time, my momentum halted only by a red light.

When it turned green, I began again. I was just about through the intersection when, for reasons I have yet to fathom, I was struck with a Jesus complex and thought I could walk on water.

It had spilled out into the intersection from the gutter, and I stepped in it. Feet went right out from under me, butt hit the ground in a perfect rump-landing. I could feel that old humiliation welling up again, but I got to my feet as if nothing had happened and no one had seen, and continued on my trek down Valley View.

Up ahead I saw a 7-Eleven beckoning me to stop for a cup of coffee, a soothing elixir for a shattered ego. I reached the store in minutes and proceeded to the coffee maker.

What happened next I can only attribute to a man still shell-shocked with fresh embarrassment; to a man not sufficiently healed to engage in a task so daunting as grasping a coffeepot, lifting it from its hot plate and drawing it back without it catching on the grinds basket and the basket dumping its dark brown contents all over his white pants. Crotch to knee.

I stood stunned. Speechless. The clerk stood stunned. Speechless. The guy in the candy aisle stood stunned. Speechless. Finally the clerk broke the silence.

"Looks like you're gonna have to go home and change."

Summary: I walked three miles in the other direction -- three miles through the city streets looking every bit like a grown man who had soiled himself. I got home just in time to answer the phone. It was Wally's. The part wasn't in; I could pick up my car whenever I wanted. Meaning it had all been for nothing. Against my better judgment, I began the long walk back to Wally's. Except for the homeless guy who hit me up for a buck, I made it without incident. I drove to work. I opened the paper to the horoscope. I read Virgo. Its advice? Stay away from caffeine.