If you want to make me howl with laughter, try tripping over something. I can't help it. Physical humor, not slapstick Three Stooges stuff, just causes an eruptive guffaw from me before I know what happens. Just ask Kenny. He knows I try to stifle, but am unable to control my laughter. The time he fell flat on his face in the middle of the night and BOUNCED kept me squealing for hours. The time his plan to have Coco (our Cocker Spaniel) pull him on Olivia's princess scooter ended in the predictable disastrous meeting of elbow and concrete and was an event that gave me giggle fodder for even longer.
So that I understand my place in things, occasionally I get to be the one who falls. I'm not above it and I'm okay with that. The Great Fall of 2006 involved an impressive catapult in socked feet on my wooden stairs wherein I got to experience FLYING for a brief moment as I skipped the last 6 or 7 steps. This is when I realized that it hurts a lot more to fall as an adult. My entire body felt jarred - even my teeth hurt - for a few days afterwards.
The Fall of 2011 was a much talked about event. I was definitely featured on some convenience store video footage when I, in an effort to do a gazelle like move to hop over a gas pump hose, managed instead to catch one foot and then a second on said hose and made impact with GAS STATION CONCRETE (imagine bubble gum and spit and shudder) with both knees, both elbows and then both hands. That affair ended with the right side of my head smashing into the garbage can. I could see the can coming, but the only thing to do is close your eyes and let it unfold. Needless to say, it took several moments for me to get myself together and speed away.
My falls are not like other people's falls. They happen in slow motion and always involve some sort of somersaulty action and lots of noise. I was as surprised as you that so early in 2012 I have already experienced a new high (or low) in clumsiness. This weekend as our family returned from dinner one evening I noticed on our brick steps leading downward to the house that something had fallen from my pocket. As I turned to inspect what had fallen, my foot (IN FANTASTIC NEW TENNIES) caught somehow and caused me to wobble. And then the slow-mo began. I swear to you this event stretched time somehow. One step, twist, another step, twist the opposite direction. Oh! Oh! Oh! Don't scuff my shoes!!! Hands full, I slammed into the iron rail and then hyper-extended in 12 different ways before I windmilled down the brick stairs. Now during the 20 minutes it took all of this to unfold I'm trying to avoid making impact WITH ACTUAL BRICK which is why I guess I should consider myself lucky that I instead LANDED FACE FIRST AGAINST THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE. Umph. This happens all the time in Road Runner and it feels about how you think it would.
Not my proudest moment, but knowing you will imagine the Diet Coke in my hair just makes me smile. So, you know me, always trying to get in front of an embarrassing moment by outing myself. I'm fine, really and so are my shoes.
If you wrote a book I would stay up all night reading it, or maybe I would try to read it just chapter by chapter to save it for when I need to laugh or feel understood. Here I knew what was going to happen in your falling stories but I still couldn't wait to read the next line.
ReplyDeleteLove that you find my ridiculousness so entertaining! You are the one who told me I ought to write about that so I'll dedicate that chapter to you!
DeleteThank you, I think I'm going to remind you of more of your entertaining stories worthy of your book. To be published next year?
DeleteLove this! I try to wait to see if someone is hurt before I start laughing, but it's not always possible to contain my laughter. Once my neighbor slipped and fell on ice and actually slid underneath her car.....that was a hoot. I had to ask if it was okay to laugh after she got up.
ReplyDeleteGlad you and your shoes are good :)
Your entrapment under the garbage cams is the best fall story I've ever heard, Susan, hands down. We are such kindred spirits.
DeleteAre you as eloquent falling as you are describing it??(she asked rhetorically)
ReplyDeleteOlivia said it was not a lovely moment, so it seems the best part of it will have to be in the retelling!
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