I had a scary thing happen yesterday. Something that could be viewed as a sign of the times. Something that could have been incredibly embarrassing to me and damaging to my reputation under only slightly different circumstances.

Let me explain what happened.

Three or four days ago, my wife, Mary Ellen, was out on the trail ride in woods close to our house. Suddenly, a chestnut or something of that ilk, (she never saw it) fell out of a tree and smashed into her left thigh.  She said it hit with a considerable amount of force, and she figured it must have fallen from the top of one of the tall trees in the area. So, if it didn’t hit any branches on the way to the ground, it could have fallen a good thirty or forty feet before it struck her leg.

She said that it was lucky that the object struck her and not the horse she was riding. The horse would have probably bucked and dumped her on the trail, and that could have been a disaster.

She showed me the bruise that night. It was big (about the size of a baseball!) and black and blue…REALLY ugly!

Then, two days ago, we were out helping neighbors move some pasture fencing near a wooded area. Mary Ellen was in shorts, and she ended up getting tangled in briars, which put bloody scratches across the bruise! (What luck!)

THEN, yesterday Mary Ellen went to the doctor (for something other than the bruise.) However, when her doctor saw the bruise and the scratches, the woman asked Mary Ellen what happened. When Mary Ellen explained the circumstances to her, the doctor then asked, “Are you sure your husband didn’t hit you? This looks like spousal abuse.”

Mary Ellen’s first thought was, Wow! You really don’t know my husband!  She assured the woman that I had nothing to do with the mark whatsoever!

When Mary Ellen told me what the doctor said, I got angry. I’ve purposely hit one person in my entire life, and that took place when I was in the eighth grade. I had gotten mad at Anthony Fama who threw a rock at me and hit me in the head with it. I ran up the hill where he was standing, and punched him in the stomach. That was it. I’ve never hit another individual with the intention of hurting him or her before or after that. Ever. And I would NEVER EVEN CONSIDER striking any woman, let alone the one that I love!

Now, I’m aware that the doctor’s question was nothing personal; the woman doesn’t know me. However, the concern and anger that I have comes from a hypothetical angle.  What if Mary Ellen was angry at me and wanted to hurt me? All she would have had to do was say, “Yes” to the doctor’s question.  Then, according to law, the doctor have been obligated to report the incident to the proper authorities, and I could have been arrested for spousal abuse!

Of course, Mary Ellen would never stoop to such deceit, but suppose, say, it was my ex-wife? Cruella might have enjoyed getting me in trouble when we were in the heat of the divorce. What then?

When I brought this to Mary Ellen’s attention, she said that, once the doctor examined the bruise, it would have become apparent that wound was the result of something other than spousal abuse.

Okay, but what if Cruella had decided to whack herself with a hammer or a two-by-four or something, and then report that I did it to her? I would have been arrested. And, even if she recanted later on, my name would have been smeared all over the local papers, while her name would have been shielded from the press!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that women need to be protected from domestic violence. I have seen the results of such despicable acts, and I have taken two female friends of mine to shelters for battered women to get them away from raging husbands. (One of these friends decided to go back to her husband when he promised to seek therapy for his anger, and she ended up dying at his hands.)

So I don’t know what the answer is. However, the whole thing really made me sit up and pay attention.

Scary, huh?