My Answer to the Daily Prompt . . .

What is the last thing you learned?

The following is a five-minute stand up routine I presented at Toastmasters. It feels like an eternity has passed since I delivered this ‘routine’ but, in fact, it was only five years ago.

The club was focused on teaching, learning, and putting into practice, the art of injecting humour into speeches and other roles on the meeting agenda.

The “Open Mike” was the coveted, and most feared, role of the evening, and this is what I did with it. I’ve added some annotations, they are bracketed and italicised, and although the following isn’t the ‘last thing I learned’ I think it’s an important lesson nonetheless.

–⋅ o ♥ o ⋅–

The Horan Charm

My marriage has taught me that it’s better to holiday solo.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love my husband.  

I especially love talking about him when he’s not around to defend himself.  

Oh look, there he is. (I pointed to outside the window.)

Hi Darl!  (I waved.)  

Keep walking!  (I waved him away – no he wasn’t there.)

Bad luck follows that man wherever he goes.  

Home soil, overseas, international waters.

It doesn’t matter where we holiday, disaster ensues.

We once spent thousands of dollars on a surfing holiday in the Maldives.  You can see me on a surfboard, can’t you?  (I imitated being a goofy-footed surfer. It’s funny because I’m so chubby.)

Actually, I’m the tag-a-long photographer so it’s my job to take photos of him surfing and over the years I’ve captured the most amazing photos of dolphins.  

Anyway, the day we arrived, a cyclone system formed off the east coast of Africa, and another one formed off the west coast of Malaysia and there we were bobbing around in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  

Not cool!

But at least Dean had his surfboards, which is more than I can say about the time we spent 10 days in Samoa and Virgin Airlines decided our luggage could arrive eight days after we did.  

He was not happy.

We’ve driven 3,000 kilometres from far north Queensland to the Victorian Alps to go skiing and were delighted our arrival foreshadowed a once-in-a-lifetime blizzard.  

We really enjoyed total whiteout for those seven days.

We’ve flirted with hypothermia in New Zealand’s Middle Earth, toyed with heat stroke in the heart of our own country, and sailed the South Pacific during rough seas.  

Nothing competes with 20-foot waves, hallways lined with sick bags – some of them empty – and being ordered to hunker down in your own cabin.  

I swear, it’s the only time during my marriage that I’ve been thrown out of bed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, these are just a few examples of what my husband likes to call . . .

“The Horan Charm”

You’ve all heard of Murphy’s law, Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and Newton’s third law, For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

Combine the two and you get The Horan Charm:  

“For every moment things are going well, there is an equal and opposite nasty one waiting to ensure nothing goes according to plan.”

To ‘love, honour and obey’.  Those are the words I recall uttering when I married him.  

I do not recall the priest asking . . .

“Do you agree to accept all the bad luck that goes hand in hand with marrying this man?”

But . . . I’ll admit.

I should have heard the alarm bells ringing on our wedding night when Dean scooped me up into his arms – I was much thinner then – and, as he carried me across the threshold, he promptly cracked my head on the doorway.  

So cliché!

I know!

But honest to goodness, that night didn’t turn out the way either of us had planned.

And I should have heard those alarm bells.  

I should have.  

But I was young and naïve and in love. 

And a lot has changed over the years.

Now I’m savvy enough to now know the only reason my bad luck magnet ended up with me is because . . .

Opposites attract!