Free Falling

I am a little bit of a klutz. I don’t really require anything to trip up in; I have been known to fall over nothing, heck, I have even fallen up the stairs (on more than one occasion). Some people can sing, others can dance or swallow light bulbs; this is my talent.

I remember one Christmas going out to Sears with my mom to help load up the car with some of her catalogue purchases, the most important one was my brother’s Christmas gift, a DVD player. It wasn’t that she bought a lot, but she had some bigger boxes coming and needed the extra pair of hands, plus we had to get groceries on the way back.

We loaded the van without incident or injury and arrived back at the house safely, even though a pretty good winter’s storm had picked up while we were shopping. Unloading the van in the white of a storm was a bit messy and you would think that if a person was going to fall this would be the time they would do it- but not me.

We were almost finished when my brother came home. He helped us bring in the last of the groceries in the back of the van, but thankfully did not see the boxes in the front. Mom, worried he might see his gift, told him to go inside and start putting the groceries away. There was a problem with that plan though, part of the kitchen is open to the foyer, and if Cas was in the wrong spot at the wrong time he would see his Christmas gift. As far as my mom was concerned that would completely ruin Christmas.

So mom handed me the DVD player and she grabbed the rest of the stuff. She ordered me to hang back a bit until she gave the signal for me to move out. On my tip toes behind her, bundled in a large marshmallow like winter jacket with my hood pulled down tight; I waited stealthily at the end of the walkway in the blowing snow with the player in my arms. She was inside now, I could hear her talking. Then her hand jutted out the front door, one quick ‘come in’ gesture. I was ready.

I made it across the icy walkway and up the steps and to the threshold, and then I was airborne.

You know the old Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons where the poor Coyote always ends up getting the utter and complete crap kicked out of him? Where at least once, every show, he ends up falling from some great height and landing with a puff of smoke and an ACME anvil on top of his head? At the beginning of every fall though, he has that moment where he pauses mid air and looks at the camera as if to say: “I am so screwed” and then plummets to the bottom of the canyon. Got that visual?

I am not sure exactly how I achieved the height I did, or why I was perfectly horizontal when I got there, but I do know there was a fraction of a second where I paused mid flight and looked at mom with that “I am so screwed” look on my face and then I landed in the middle of the foyer with a groan and a thud.

There I was, flat on my face and splayed out on the ceramic tile. However, my arms were miraculously straight up over my head with the DVD player held in them still. Somehow I had not dropped it, landed on it, or let it hit the ground.

I believe my first words were: “Did I break it?”

Mom did a quick check to see if I was ok and then wrenched the player from my outstretched hands leapt over my prostrate figure and vaulted over the stairs with the gift before Cas could come out to see what was wrong. She is pretty nimble.

When she came back down she helped me up, and then started laughing. It was quite the fall to witness but once she knew I was ok, and that the gift was safely stashed away, she was free to laugh. She had a hard time stopping.

Most of my falls have this effect on other people. There is a story Don tells about one of my more memorable flights into painland that makes people cry laughing- especially when he does a step by step re-enactment.

The reason I bring this up is because I had actually been doing ok for awhile I hadn't had any major story worthy falls in quite sometime. It was enough of a break in routine that Don actually commented on the fact I had been fall free for months.

I think that is what did it actually. The cruel bastard jinxed me.

Considering the number and severity of falls I have had over the years it was a lucky and remarkable thing that I never broke anything. Well that situation has been remedied my friends.

Two Saturdays ago I had a fall and fractured my foot. I am currently in an annoying aircast. I wish I could tell you how exactly I fell this time but the truth is I have no idea how it happened. I was walking back to the car and all of a sudden the pavement was rushing toward me at an alarming rate and then I saw sky.

In the process I rolled an ankle fracturing my right foot, and landed on my left knee followed closely my left arm and then the back of my head. The story of my experience at the clinic will have to be for another day because that one is a long one. And right now, I haven’t got time for the pain.