Wednesday, August 20, 2014

If I Stumble, If I Fall

My entire life, I have been known as the family klutz. I trip across perfectly flat floors, fall up stairs, run into door frames (hell, run into doors), crash into cabinet doors that were left open (yes, by me), and step into holes. I stub my toes, knock my shins into corners of furniture, and catch my toe in the covers when getting up and fall out of bed.

For example, when I was in high school, I ran in the house one evening while out with friends to get something out of my room. Our house was a split level, with the bedrooms up six steps from the living room. There was a wrought iron banister on the wall on the right side, similar to this one:



As I ran up the stairs, my purse strap caught on the scrolled end of the rail, yanking me like a dog on the end of its chain and slamming me into the wall face first., where I collapsed onto the stairs in a heap.

Another example: I was home from college for the weekend. Never much of a morning person, I had staggered out of bed and was heading downstairs in my stocking feet. (Note: different house than previous scenario. This one had a full staircase, going straight down, ending in a tiled entry hall with my parents' bedroom to the immediate left and the front door straight ahead. This is important to know.) The steps are carpeted, and as I stepped on the second step from the top, my feet went out from under me and I fell back, landing on my ass and bumping all the way down the staircase, all 14 stairs. I picked up quite a bit of speed as I got closer to the bottom, and as I hit the bottom, my mother opened the door to her bedroom, just in time to see me shoot past, slide across the tile, and crash into the front door. To her credit, my mother did manage to ask me if I were okay while laughing hysterically (I was NOT - I cracked my tailbone).

Here's another one: I was living in Nashville, getting ready to go to Atlanta for the weekend. I was packing my suitcase, playing loud music and running back and forth between my bedroom and the bathroom. On the floor, just outside my bedroom door, was a good sized box filled with old clothes I was planning to donate. I had to step slightly to the right as I went out the door towards the bathroom so as to keep from running into the box and had been doing so for several weeks. But one time, ONE TIME, as I ran out of my room towards the bathroom, I didn't step to the right. Instead, I rammed my little toe on my left foot right into the box. My toe bent entirely the wrong way and I fell down in the hallway, pretty sure my toe had been severed (it had not). But it WAS broken, turning very black by the next day and making the wearing of shoes unbelievably miserable. But I soldiered on and continued on my trip to Atlanta, because I was just that stupid awesome.

There are more, but you get the idea.

This morning, with my daughter upstairs asleep and my husband off to work, I was bringing up plastic tubs of preschool files and books from the basement to take to school with me (back to school this week, getting the room ready for preschoolers to arrive after Labor Day). Our very old house has a very old wooden staircase that goes down to the basement. At the top of the stairs is a tiled landing, then there are two steep steps up on the right side of the landing that lead to the kitchen (to the left) and a hallway to the living room and front door (to the right). As I carried a tub of books up the basement stairs to take to the car, I didn't lift my leg high enough, caught the edge of my flip flop on the first tiled step, and fell down hard. HARD. Fortunately, the tub of books broke part of my fall. The steps are tile with metal strips along the edge, and I hit the edge of the top step with the side of my knee, the second step with the side of my shin, and I don't know what with the top of my foot, but it hurts like hell. I laid on the floor, crying and feeling sorry for myself and hoping I hadn't broken anything (apparently not, but I do have some dandy bruises and swelling and my leg hurts in three different places whether something is touching it or not). And I learned that Ruby is no Lassie, because she was there when I crashed to the ground, then poofed her tail and took off.

Worthless, but PRECIOUS!


This incident, in itself, is bad enough. But the night before, I was bending over, reaching into the puppy crate to pull out their food bowl, leaning on the edge of the bathtub for extra support (because I was thinking safety first), my hand on the folded bathmat that was draped over the side of the tub, when the bathmat took off across the edge of the tub, taking me with it and causing me to crash my shoulder into the puppy crate, scaring the puppies silly and causing them to run out of the room. (By the way, my husband and daughter were in the next room, heard the crash, and only hollered to me to see if I were okay [I mostly was] but otherwise didn't get up to check on me.)

I have no spectacular ending to this story, because I fear it hasn't ended yet. I will fall again. And run into something with a body part. Or have to go to the ER because I cut myself making a bat cage (a story for another day).

When I told my daughter I didn't know how to end this post, she gave me a suggestion, so I'll go with it.

"Emma is super cool."

The end.





16 comments:

  1. Emma is a callous toad! ;) :p

    Ohhh poor Dyanne! I feel like you ought to be gently wrapped in cotton wool and carried everywhere on a litter, just to make sure you don't damage yourself again!

    But I tellya what - you TELL it reallyreally well :)

    *hugs* I hope you heal soon, and that you don't hurt yourself again.

    (frist?)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. FRIST!

      She said, "I thought I might have heard something."
      I wrote about the time I broke my nose on the water slide. Then there was the time I walked into a knee-high pylon. And the time I fell flat on my back on an icy parking lot. And the time I....

      Delete
  2. You probably should try to avoid falling down and/or hitting things (unintentionally), that said, are the puppies ok? (I would suspect that they were back looking around the corner as you were picking yourself up.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My husband told me to quit wearing flip flips and wear sensible shoes, but obviously, footwear is a non-issue, since I fall just as often barefoot as I do wearing shoes, sensible or not.
      The puppies were in their crate and saw none of it, although I do not believe they would have been any more Lassie-like than Ruby was.

      Delete
  3. let's bubble wrap her instead.... :)

    hope you are feeling better or soon -

    when i stumble i fall too - hubby says i surrender to gravity - i don't fight it -

    hang in there...seriously hold on to something :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I felt so stupid when I fell. The only places I didn't hurt this morning from yesterday's fall was from the shoulders up.
      My great aunt (the one Zoe named her chicken after) used to fall all the time. ALL the time. And she didn't fight it. She just went with it. She fell on a newly oiled and graveled street one time when she was in her 40s and scraped the backs of her hands because she didn't even try to catch herself. She also got a face full of gravel that had to be removed by a doctor.

      Delete
  4. Wow, that girls really knows how to sum up a story. :)
    I was cracking up at each of your incidents. Sorry. Next time you and I get together, we should simply tell stories about the times we fell and hurt ourselves.
    Hope you aren't too sore today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I only hurt from the shoulders down today.
      I knew you would understand the whole debacle.

      Delete
  5. Oh man...let me wipe the tears from my eyes so I can type this comment.

    And yes, I'm crying from laughing. Sorry, friend. While I have a clumsy child (I honestly do not know how he manages to play sports as well as he does) and can relate to your mom laughing (the part about bouncing down the stairs and sliding into the front door...that was the best), I, too, have a tendancy to be klutz-ish...but I blame it on my attempt to be quick and efficient. Which it is almost always thwarted because I have to pause to address my injury...

    Hope you feel better soon! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My family is notorious for laughing first and asking if you're okay second, and I am probably the worst about it. So I do forgive my mother laughing at me when I slid past her on the tile floor.
      I drop things when I'm trying to be quick and efficient.

      Delete
  6. Wow, this is quite a list! Amazing how all the witnesses to these events are either laughing or just going about their business...but I have to admit I can't stop laughing at the one with your mom and the bedroom door and tile floor. That one's pretty hysterical.
    Hope your injured self is OK fast!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I only hit some of the highlights. And yes, either laughter or total indifference. If I ever say "I fell" I hear "You always fall."
      My mother cannot tell that story without laughing to this day. And it was over 30 years ago.

      Delete
  7. Stupid auto correct. ...not era... new Drs.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 32 stitches? Holy crap!
    When I fell in my apartment in Nashville, my old cat Christopher stood there and looked at me with sheer panic in his eyes, concerned that his personal waitress wouldn't be able to serve him his Fancy Feast.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Even though you can't see me crying from laughing, or hear me laughing out load at this post, I am apologizing for laughing at your life long list of slips, trips, falls, slides, etc. I am truly sorry I am laughing because I know damn good & well if I ever took any one of these spills it would have required surgery, a hospital stay and possible plastic surgery to fix all the shit that would have been broken. I don't fall well. And I appreciate that Karma can be quite the bitch. So, while I am LOL and LMAO at your post, please know that I am sincerely happy that you are still upright and breathing. And I was never laughing at the fact that you have hurt yourself, but rather I am laughing due to your amazing writing skills in describing the falls. Be careful!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will be watching your posts to see if karma does, indeed, come back to bite you in the butt. Or push you down the stairs :) I have managed to stay on my feet all week (so far). I've tripped several times, usually because of flips flops or puppies, but I haven't hit the ground!

      Delete