A few days ago, I turned around rather quckly and, not knowing Mrs JB was behind me, caught her right in the right eye with my elbow. OUCH! Needless to say, I was overly apologetic and I felt terrible. We put ice on it but, unfortunately, it became a shiner, so I felt even worse. Well, as usual, Mrs JB was really cool about it. She knew it was an accident. I've never even been in a real fight in my whole life unless you count that time in 6th grade when a classmate and I jumped around in circles for a minute or two jabbing, talking smack and pretending to be cool. Neither of us landed a punch, so that doesn't really count I guess. Anyway, she's fine and no permanent damage was done. No big deal. Well, here's the wierd part. Everywhere we go, we get these wierd looks. We were both getting our hair cut and the guy who does both of our hair didn't really seem to believe it was an accident and went on about how he and his ex-wife used to beat the crap out of one another. In Eckerd's, the older guy behind the counter looked at me with a frown and patted my wife's hand while giving her a sympathetic "it will all be ok, honey" grin. I even noticed an acquaintence of mine at a meeting looking at my wife's eye with this look of horror and then back at me as if I was beating her up on a daily basis or something. At first, I was a little embarrassed by it all. But, then I realized I had NOTHING to be embarrassed about and I got kinda pissed. I mean, how presumptuous to assume that, because she had a black eye: a. I was the cause. b. I was a wife beater. I can think of a myriad of different reasons any one of us could have a black eye that have little to do with fights, but even more that have nothing to do with domestic abuse. I just find that sort of presumption to be rather frustrating. Besides, if anyone was going to get beat up in my house, it would not be Mrs JB.
Mrs JB, I believe Jason Collier has a mask that you could borrow to prevent this from happening in the future.
For some reason whenever I hear "wife beating", I always think of old, rusted and moldy white trailer homes with a barefooted Tonya Harding standing outside smoking a cigarette while holding a cold bottle of Schlitz to her brow. "Damn it feels good to be a gangster." - Geto Boys (has nothing to do with the thread...just felt like getting a Geto Boys blast in here!)
On a similar note, a good friend of mine, who was 8 months pregnant, stopped in the liquor store to buy some beer and wine for a party she was attending. You should have seen the looks she got! (PS - I figured you had a dark side -- all my best to Mrs JB )
Jeff-- You have every reason to be pissed. You also have to realize that there is nothing that you can do about what some people may think. If you explain what happened, people won't believe you. Those of us who know you know that you wouldn't ever harm your wife...or anybody else for that matter. Your wife, on the other hand...I have always feared that one day she'd take exception to one of my posts and kick my ass.
I believe Jeff, but I can't see how you could elbow someone in the eye by simply turning around. Were you boxing her out for a rebound?
It is mainly because I'm a foot taller than her and had my hands up gesturing (as usual, my mouth was open and my arms were flailing about as I was talking about some inane nonsense ) when I turned around. My elbow was right on line, unfortunately.
I don't think the matter is anything to get pissed off over. I think it is a perfectly instinctive reaction to show displeasure at the *thought* of abuse. While this is clearly not the case with Jeff and his wife, not everyone out there is willing to give the benefit of the doubt, especially when they do not know the two of them. With as much abuse that goes on, I do not think it is unreasonable to *not* give the benefit of the doubt.
Good point! Look at woman with black eye...then look over at James Hetfield next to her. I would give him a dirty look, too. Of course, if he had his "I Saved the Rockets" t-shirt on, then I might have to side with him and say "What'd you do, honey, to deserve a beating like that?" .
At least now you have a good excuse to break out the eyepatch and traipse about like pirates. Arrrrrrr.
Jeff, From the people I know who volunteer for women's shelters and what-not, 99.4% of the time (sorry, no link... I'm just making a point) a shiner on a woman means one thing only. No, it ain't fair to you, but maybe you could kind of take solace in the fact that it's frowned on by society more than ever. Is that a shiny lining to the shiner? Anyway, we're going to have to call you the mailman or something! edit: very excellent replies in this thread, by the way.
Jeff, I don't see Mrs JB confirming the ACCIDENT in this thread. I would be pissed off too, maybe you can get her a shirt that says, "I lost to Muhammed Ali's daughter" DD
I'm with you, Jeff. A few weeks ago I was laying in bed with my arms back and my hands behind my head. My wife felt bad the night before and had stayed in all day. She was feeling better and was a little hyper. She was goofing around and poked me in the ribs. It's not an entirely uncommon thing for her to "bug" me just for the fun she gets out of it. When she did, my elbow came forward and caught her sqaurely in the mouth; solid hit. Her lip was between my elbow and her teeth. So she had a busted lip for a few days. For awhile I was wondering if we needed to take her to get stitches, but we didn't.
Just tell everyone she got into a Road Rage incident with Achebe Seriously, Tough break for you Jeff, but what if society didn't notice and make the presumption, the world would then be a much tougher place for women who do get beaten by their husbands.
