Commentary: Cliché, yes, but I really did slip and fall in Newport Beach

On Tuesday morning, I was supposed to be at the Newport Beach Tennis Club at 9:45 for a 10 a.m. ladies’ duplicate bridge game with my Encore friends.

When I started up my car, the dashboard read-out said, “Replace key battery.”

Oh, dear. I’ve never had a keyless ignition before, and I didn’t know whether the warning allowed me days or minutes to replace that battery. Worse, I had promised to hurry home to meet the painter after bridge, and I didn’t think I would have time to stop at the dealership afterward.

And what if I couldn’t return home because my key battery was dead?

I decided to take a chance and stop at the dealership on the way.

“Can you replace my key battery?” I asked.

“No, ma’am. You have to go to the parts department for that.”

“I don’t know where that is, and I am in something of a hurry,” I said.

“I’ll escort you,” he said. “It’ll take just a few minutes.”

I was third in line. A lady getting her key battery replaced was ahead of me, and somebody on the phone was occupying the time of the other parts fellow.

“I’ve never had a keyless car,” I explained, “and I don’t know how long I have before I the battery dies.”

“You don’t need a battery to drive your car,” the parts man said. “You just take this thing here out of that thing there, and you have a key.”

Oh, right. When I bought the car almost a year ago, someone had mentioned that. Not sure how I’d get that big push-button out of the key slot .

The transaction was completed in plenty of time for me to get to the NBTC before 10. I found a distant parking place and was rushing along, in my new, 2-inch slide sandals, looking into my purse for my wallet, to get my $2 buy-in, when, whooosh, I fell over.

OMG! I couldn’t believe my eyes as to what had caused the fall.

Five lovely tennis-playing women came over to help me. I took my shoes off to get some leverage, and bless them, they got me up. I put my shoes back on and assessed the situation.

Just like a slapstick comedian, I had slipped on a banana peel. Not just a banana peel, but a whole banana that had been run over.

“Who’d put a banana on the ground like that?” one tennis lady asked.

“It must’ve fallen out of some kid’s backpack,” another tennis lady said.

“What a cliché!” I laughed. “I slipped on a banana peel!”

I assured the women I was fine, thanked them for their help, reported the road hazard and headed for the bridge room.

I thought about that ionic anklet I’d bought at the O.C. Fair that was supposed to help me keep my balance but decided not to find fault with it. I don’t recall a warranty against bananas.

My hands were shaking, although I wasn’t hurt or upset. I was just jazzed that I’d slipped on a banana peel, or a banana — same difference — as if I’d walked into a vaudeville routine!

When all was bid and played and tallied, my partner Pauline and I won, and I got home in time to meet the painter.

What a lucky/unlucky banana peel!

LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.