Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for March 05, 2015

Janice is right, my wife slipped on ice and broke a bone ,I can’t tell you how many strangers said that to us. Makes me wonder what their lives are like to think such a thing.

After a generation of cheesy Lifetime-like movies, this is what you get…

Not Arlo, not in a billion cartoons.

I doubt if anyone is serious when they ask that question. It’s only good natured teasing.

I knew a lady who kept having “run in’s with a door”. She was later divorced from her “door”…

Most husbands are not wife-beaters, but you won’t get that impression watching TV, because normal people living normal lives don’t don’t make for good ratings, whether in fiction or in the news (which is also mostly fiction these days.).

Janis is right, it is disturbing that that’s the 1st thing people, including herself, would think. It’s not always the case, but not all cases are reported.

Didn’t that also happen the last time she got hit in the eye with a soccer ball?

My wife did an endo on her bike and when I took her to the emergency room the police were all over me for her condition. They didn’t ask her about it until she yelled at them to listen to me. I even had the bike in the truck, bent wheel and all! Sheesh!

Just what you’ve never wanted from this strip – a cross-over with the current story line in “Rex Morgan”

Whenever I see a woman with a cast, I say, ""Don’t kick him so hard next time," or, “Don’t hit him so hard next time.”.They usually smile and nod.Beware the ones who proclaim, “HE HAD IT COMING!”

Why would people think he would ever hit her?

Our son is visually impaired and we never coddled him and told him he couldn’t do things so he acquired some pretty interesting bruises and marks. Always wondered what people thought. Especially the day he ran full bore into a tree without putting his hands out. That even startled us when he came home. He looked like he tried to sandpaper a bobcats butt in a phone booth.

I tore the ligaments in my right foot some years ago and was walking on crutches. We went into a small restaurant, and at least three people made a joke about my husband hitting me, including the waitress. I was appalled.

I don’t think, as some of you have mentioned, that the general public has any idea that someone has actually hit anybody in circumstances like this. This attempted joke is the default setting; people say it mindlessly. I think it is kind of tasteless, yuk-yuk-yuk humor, but would never get upset about it. I got a dose of it when I squashed my fingers on exercise equipment and broke my foot when my leg fell asleep, within the space of a month.

In a kind-of-ironic way – when I had a bruise on my cheekbone from my husband (now ex), no one asked if he had caused it.

An old high school friend of mine was an abused wife for years, finally free of the guy now. She said that all the times she showed up at work bruised, nobody ever asked her, nobody ever gave her a pathway out, she was always ashamed to look messed up. She wished, later on, that someone had asked her how she got that way and was everything okay. So if someone asks you, really wants to know—they’re not being nosy, they’re stepping out of their comfort zones and risking hearing something that will need empathy, action, and help.

Oh and: if Janis didn’t want a black eye she should have immediately iced the area.

Does anyone else remember the episode of I Love Lucy when Ricky tossed a book to Lucy and she caught it with her eye. Everyone (inclluding the Mertz’s) thought Ricky had hit her. Then in the last scene Fred showed up and said, “you know that story you told us about tossing a book to Lucy and hitting her in the eye? Well now we believe you,” and that’s when Ethel walks in with an ice pack over her eye.

True most husbands are not wife-beaters, but serious abuse of women is alive and well. I work on a council for domestic violence and the numbers are astounding — including the deaths (average of 3/day in the US.)