Yesterday evening my wife and I went to dinner. I started telling the story about the time when I asked a priest not to mention Jesus in his church. This story requires expanding on which I hope to do in the near future. (Do you remember the episode of Fawlty Towers called The Germans? Basil Fawlty (played by John Cleese): "I mentioned the war but I think I got away with it.") What I want to mention now is the kick-under-the-table or in this case the several kicks and stamp on toes.
Our hosts had said grace before dinner began. Neither my wife nor I are Christians however we respected grace and closed our eyes and said amen at the end. In fact we respect all religions and are not atheists - but that's another story.
My wife obviously knew the story (she'd been there when it happened) and didn't want me to repeat it in front of our hosts and other guests who are deeply religious. I could tell that she didn't want me continue the story because of the way that my legs were being abused under the table. However, I was too far down the line to stop and could not think of any other direction in which to turn the story. Anyway, it wasn't (in my opinion) offensive to Christians if you listen to the whole story and hear that comment in context.
The difficulty at the leg kicking point is trying to focus on the story and move your legs at the same time - multi-tasking the tongue and the legs. Half my brain was trying to anticipate from which direction the next kick would come - which would allow me to reposition my legs to miss it - and the other half of my brain was trying to re-arrange the words in the story to ensure that it didn't cause any offense to anyone.
Did I succeed? Well the bruises on my legs are small so in that respect yes. We'll have to wait and see if we're invited back again to see about the other one...
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