Life as a clumsy person is difficult, especially when you're forced to explain to the doctor how, as you were dashing from your car to the house, your flip-flop caught on the edge of a stepping stone, catapulting you into the air before you landed on your belly, arms extended.
I have injured a shoulder before (due to a poorly executed foward roll in a college self-defense class), but really, I don't remember the kind of holy-hell pain I experienced yesterday afternoon, this time in the opposite shoulder.
I bawled and cussed as I hobbled into the house. A glimpse out of the dining room window revealed that E-man, contentedly eating a Happy Meal cheeseburger in the car, had totally missed the spectacle of his airborne mother.
These things always happen to me -- never a normal or understandable sort of accident.
(Ever bonk yourself in the middle of the forehead with a pair of pliers while trying to zip up a pair of skin-tight jeans in high school? Yeah, me neither.)
As for that shoulder injury in college...
We had been instructed to disable our "attackers" and then roll away from them. (Someone, please tell me why, after knocking a gun out of the bad guy's hand, you would somersault across the pavement? Wouldn't you just run like hell?)
That time, after causing a bit of a scene in my class, I ended up in a sling on the very first day of my internship at the Dallas Business Journal.
That time, when I discovered I couldn't put on a bra, I just didn't wear one. Oh, 21-year-old breasts, how I miss you... This time, I've had to ask Rick to deal with the bra (and soooo not in the context or setting he would prefer), or I've had to awkwardly fasten it myself in the front before sliding it around, one-handed, into the proper, hoisting position.)
Am awaiting the verdict as to what I've done to myself this time. Last time, it was a partially separated shoulder.
My final exam for the self-defense course involved warding off three "attackers' in a dimly lit gym. These guys, then, would be the ones to determine my grade.
The instructor told them to go easy on me. I, however, was caught up in the moment, eager to prove that I'm not a one-woman disaster. But as I whirled around to administer a fake kick, I accidently nailed one of the guys in a particularly vulnerable area.
Gasping, he fell to floor.
He beckoned the instructor over, then motioned limply toward me.
"Give her an A," he wheezed. "Just give her an A."
No comments:
Post a Comment