Please Laugh at My Expense
I mean it. I’m allowing you to because I’ve finally accepted that I’m a hopeless klutz. Recently, I fell down and in my mind, I tried to make myself believe it hadn’t really happened. I don’t readily admit I’m ungraceful, I hide it in shame. For as much as I would like to believe I’m pulled together and composed, I am more often a train wreck destined for the Emergency Room. It’s true. I’ve had more CT Scans, MRI’s, and X-Rays than a normal woman of 30, not in the field of stunt work. However, I’ve had no stitches, no bones set, and no stomach pumps. Although, I did get three staples put in my head and my tooth bonded. So, for me to come clean about my past, I’ve complied a short list of things that has either injured or embarrassed me (or both), and for you to get the full experience of my clumsiness, I’ve included the ‘1812 Overture’, courtesy of musopen.com. Slide the seek bar to 14 minutes and 27 seconds. Here’s my list:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky_-_1812_overture.ogg
6 years old in Florida, being knocked down by a wave only to notice the wave also took my bikini bottom; running right smack into a sliding glass door; being 9, trying to sit on a bench at a beauty pageant, and being knocked head over heels by my own enormous hoop skirt; slicing my thigh with my own ice skate while gliding; breaking my toe playing kickball barefoot; running over my own leg driving a three wheeler; falling into a swamp in front of my 6th grade class, earning me the nickname “Swamp Thing;” kicking the wrong way in a kick line, being badly bruised, and earning the nickname “Old Lady Legs;” choking and crying after my first cigarette; being 13, driving my Dad’s van almost into an on-coming police car; chasing away a moose from the outside of my tent only to find a chicken on the inside of it; breaking my tooth on a tractor while laughing; diving head first into bleachers, saving a ball; holding onto the neck of a galloping horse while both of my legs are flapping like a flag in the wind; falling from the top rung of the fence, onto a cow, backwards, then deposited into a pile of mud and manure; being bucked off of a horse, then stepped on; being aerialy rescued by an upperclassmen my sophomore year of high school from 30 ft up in a tree after having slipped through the bottom of my climbing saddle; being dragged thoroughly through the snow by my teacher; in a plushy ram mascot costume, running, then sailing through the air, landing on my hip bones sliding across half the length of the gym floor, then knocking over the Vice Principal; not looking ahead, I ran directly into a parked car trying to avoid a snowball; being seen running away, naked and sudsy, from a wild buffalo; throwing up after chewing tobacco; getting backed into and knocked over by a 15 passenger van; I pass out on the switch backs coming out of the grand canyon with a 60 lb external frame backpack on; leaping from a collapsible chair and falling 6 ft on to my face during a talent show in front of my entire high school; hiding under my boyfriend’s bed while his mother sits on top of it, discussing what a nice girl I am; jumping from my boyfriend’s window, landing in a snow bank, barefoot; running on a flat bed 18 wheeler and falling through a hole up to my thigh; coming home in a garbage bag after a BU party; while streaking at Forest River, I hurdle toward the water, full tilt, and forgot about the 2 ft drop, that and I was the only one streaking; I fall down the stairs in the campus center; I fall up the stairs in the campus center; ran into busty girl, bounced off of her boobs and onto my ass; was accidentally knocked off stage into the orchestra pit; blinded, I ran, face-first into wooden scenery; I get into a fist fight at The Rack (that was actually badass); I drive the wrong way up an off ramp in downtown Providence; I am confused by my own surprise baby shower and repeatedly tell my guest to not waste the good surprise on me; I leave my OBGyn’s office without pants on; I throw up red jello into my oxygen mask while in labor; walking barefoot in my attic I get my big toe caught in a knothole and fall down; the boat hits a wave during my solo on The Spirit of Boston, and I fall down the stairs; I cry hysterically on the alter at Ashley’s wedding; I fall asleep at my computer and bang my face on the keyboard; I get very, very drunk in a Tinker Bell costume; I scream like a little girl while trying to catch a bat with a pillow case in my bedroom; I accidentally get kicked in the face and launched into an brick pillar; I pass out on the floor of my bathroom; I set fire to my kitchen by neglecting taco shells in the toaster; I set fire to my kitchen neglecting an oiled skillet; I cry hysterically next to the Chuppah at Jay and Lola’s wedding; I get tossed, by a nice Jewish boy, onto a night table; I get taken for a ride by a soapy 130 lb German Shepherd, through a door; I lose my balance and fall down in front of everyone at the Improv Asylum and then try to act like no one saw it, when everyone did; I get lost in Somerville at 5 in the morning and no one speaks any english, the nurses are trying to hand me my just born baby but I'm still pushing; 17 days after giving birth I'm dangling off a ledge 20 ft off the ground, doing a split in midair because my ladder rolled away from me while I was trying to conceal merchandise in the backroom pending a 90% off sale; it's January I'm in a smallish dress and my ass is planted firmly in a snow bank while I'm trying not to vomit on my knee boots; it's the next day and I'm in the ER getting IV fluids while trying to explain to everyone that it's my 30th birthday. The end.
What I’ve learned is this: I should lay off the sauce and stay away from animals.