It bounced in his hand once mid-swap, and then did the perfect backward two-and-a-half somersault dive in the pike position. To. the. ground.
We watched in slow motion, each of us grabbing at the air just short of the lens- my baby, the 50mm- as gravity did what gravity does. It hit the floor and bounced. Twice. Then army rolled under the cake table. Where it came to rest in three separate pieces, much like the three-tiered fondant masterpiece above. Except nowhere near as sweet.
Suddenly all eyes from the neighboring tables were on us, as we stood frozen in half-crouched fighting tiger, hidden dragon poses. In that instant, it hit me that we must've looked a lot like Scooby Doo & the Gang trying to go unnoticed by the Electric Monster in some underground mine shaft somewhere. In that moment, we knew we had two choices.
We could either release the high-pitched voices that were screaming in our heads out into the world, or we could play it off like it was no big deal. That this sort of thing just, y'know, happens all the time. What-evs. No biggie. We looked at each other, then at the lens, then back at each other. And in that one, brief glimmer of an eye, an entire husband & wife conversation took place. We both popped back up in perfect synchronization. And then, without missing a beat, proceeded to give our best hey, we were just cast as extras in a Friends episode fake laughs in the background. For good measure, I threw my hands up in a Brady Bunch worthy shoulder shrug paired with a signature head shake & smile. As if to say, Oh you, what am I going to do with you! And then somewhere somebody pushed play on some canned laughter from the audience.
Which was really the weirdest part.
In the end, it turns out it really wasn't that big of a deal. We were nearing the end of the night anyway, as our couple was just about to cut the cake. So I just ran back with my three little sad pieces that used to make up my 50 1.4, and swapped them for another lens as we finished out the night together not even missing a beat.
But for you to really to understand why this story is so classic, you first have to understand how insanely particular & protective Justin is of our gear in the first place. I mean, the boy gives me a hard time if he finds even a speck of DUST on the lens. He threatens to take the computer away if I get too close to touching the screen because he can't stand the fingerprints. And he is the only one who shall pack & unpack our gear bags.
And here he had just swan dived the one lens I use 99.9% of the time, and I...I didn't even say a word. Which y'know is really just code for I'm saving it up for some point in the future when I really need it.
Like any good Brady Bunch, sitcom, shoulder-shrugging wife would! :)
Amen.
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Life with J&M
