There isn’t a door jamb or wall corner my body hasn’t inadvertantly run into. I have a knack for it, really. If you saw me walking through my house, you’d think I’d been drinking. I wish. No, I just can’t seem to judge distances all that well sometimes. My shoulders are particularly good at finding obstacles to slam into, sending me teetering backwards as I curse myself and the wall that jumped out in front of me.
Stubbed toes? Been there, done that. Every. Single. Day. When I was a kid, it was the bar and barstools in the living room. Now? The bars of the bed frame and the large brick “landing” in the living room that the wood stove sits on. And sometimes the occassional piece of furniture decides to wreak havoc with my already crooked toes. One week, I stubbed the same pinky toe SIX times! Then to add insult to injury, I clipped the other pinky toe on the armoir in the middle of the night. I started walking like Frankenstein. The pinky toes are now unnaturally bumpy.
Clumsiness and alcohol don’t mix. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out. One day, my friend and I went to play golf. No, this story does not involve me hitting a golf ball into my own eye, though I have hit myself in the leg at the tail end of my swing. It’s an ugly thing to behold. But I digress. After playing, we went and had pizza at a local joint. Several beers were enjoyed. After that, we went to one of our favorite bars. We spent many hours enjoying the summer air and the various beverages of choice. Sometime after midnight, or possibly later, we decided to have a shot of Goldschlagger to keep us “warm” for the walk back to my apartment.
We had a good time stumbling our way through town. We were even stopped by a nice police officer on his bicycle and asked if we needed any help. We said we were fine and asked him if he had any of his trading cards with him (the cops in our town used to have trading cards, ala baseball cards). I realized on our walk that I was out of cash and wanted to stop and get some before I went to work in the morning. After getting my cash, we continued walking through the empty parking lot…
where I did some sort of slow motion falling somersault over the air underneath my feet. Bruised and scraped, I got up, dusted myself off and we kept walking. My friend Mary couldn’t stop laughing. Neither could I actually. The next morning, I couldn’t remember why I was all bruised up and why my hands were scraped. I also didn’t remember stopping at the ATM until I looked in my wallet and found my cash.
I have a love-hate relationship with the waste bins at the house. It’s great that they hold so much, but they are a giant pain in the ass to move, especially when heavy. I also don’t like that the lids are so…unpredictable. I’ve suffered several head injuires because the lid has unceremoniously closed down on me before I was ready. Sure, it looks like it’s going to stay up, but breathe wrong and that sucker is going to come down on you faster than Republicans come down on Obama.
We have several large, beautiful rose bushes in the front yard. When we moved in, they probably hadn’t been pruned in years. I spent several hours carefully pruning and cleaning out the garden bed that leads to the front door. As I worked my way up towards the front of the house, I moved the bin. I had been closing the lid each time but had grown tired of what I saw as an unnecessary step. I tipped the bin back, being careful to not step on the dangling lid and inched it forward. One step. Two steps. Three steps…
Crash.
I had “skillfully” managed to step on the lid that swung back underneath my unsuspecting feet. This brought the entire green waste bin, full of lawn clippings, rose branches, and dog poop, down to the ground, with me falling headfirst into it. Yes, both knees were bruised, along with one ankle, a wrist, and my forehead, which caught the edge of the bin as I fell. The good news? No neighbors were out front and I didn’t land in any shit.The bad news? Just the pain and bruises that stayed with me for a week or so.
Lesson learned: ALWAYS close the lid before moving the bin.
You know how you used to do wheelies with grocery shopping carts? Yes, I know it’s an irresponsible and potentially dangerous thing to do. And if I saw the kids doing it, I’d rip them a new one. But that’s different. Hypocrisy rules.
One evening, my roommates and I went grocery shopping. My friend Joanna and I were wandering through the frozen food aisle, while my other roommates were somewhere else in the store. In the cart, was some Pepsi, cereal, and a few other light items. The store was surprisingly empty for a weeknight in a college town. As we turned the corner into the aisle, I trotted a bit to get up some speed, stepped up on the “footrest” of the cart with one foot, leaving the other foot hanging in the air behind me. I put my weight forward and…
found myself being thrown under the cart as it came up and backwards towards me, front wheels straight up in the air. You know this doesn’t end well, right?
I landed on both knees, but my “athletic prowess” kept the cart from flipping over on top of me. I managed to bring it back down to earth, while still on my knees in the middle of the ice cream aisle. My friend? Laughing hysterically and about to pee her pants. Nobody else in the aisle fortunately. I stood up, rubbing both knees, and said, “I guess I should have done that AFTER we got some heavier stuff in the cart.” Our roommates followed the sound of our laughter and were soon in the aisle with us, asking what had happened. I’m sure the security cameras caught it all.
If YouTube had been around for a lot of these incidents, I’d be screwed.