From the Redneck Diva:
Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows I am a horrible klutz. And by horrible I don’t mean I’m bad at it—I’m actually pretty good. If by “good” you mean “I can trip over dust,” then yeah, I’m good. If there is something to trip over, bump into, or wind myself on I will find it. Even if it’s broad daylight, there’s 20 feet around a single object with a spotlight on it and neon flashing signs saying, “DON’T TRIP ON THIS!” it’s almost guaranteed I will trip over it. Neither of my parents are clumsy, so I don’t know where I got it. Family get-togethers aren’t occasions where we all sit around sharing stories of our collective bumps, scrapes, falls and stumbles because I seem to be the lone klutz in the family. In fact, I think I’ve cornered the market on both sides of the family, steps included. I’m just that good. Good and clumsy.
My mom is usually privy to my falls for some strange reason. If I had to pick a person who has witnessed nearly as many of my accidents as my mom it would have to be my sister. And while I have no doubt they both love me dearly and would do anything for me, I know that if I ever fall and break something, my trip to the hospital will be slightly delayed until they stop laughing and regain enough control to drive a vehicle again. I’m fairly certain that if they were ever to fall I’d laugh, too, but they never give me the opportunity to find out.
I have slipped on ice so many times I quit counting. When I was in junior high I fell up the band room stairs. I have tripped over carpet; not even shag carpet—it was Berber. My husband, after 17 years of marriage, still marvels at my ability to bump into things that aren’t even in my path.
When I was a teenager one of my chores after school was to unload the dishwasher. The way our kitchen was laid out, when the dishwasher door was open you had a very narrow walkway between the edge of the door and the cabinet across from the dishwasher. Even if you don’t have a dishwasher (and bless your heart if you don’t) you probably know that a dishwasher door is pretty hard to miss. I mean, they aren’t small and they jut right out there in the middle of things, right? Granted, they don’t send off a signal like when a truck backs up or anything, but well, they’re kind of hard to miss. So when I got home from school every day the dishwasher door was usually open, thus signaling the need for unloading. And one day I kind of…fell in the dishwasher.
Yes, I said I fell in the dishwasher. As in my body propelled itself forward with such force I landed inside the dishwasher.
My mom heard a stupendous crash from the kitchen and came running out of the utility room across the kitchen to see her oldest child lodged head-first inside the dishwasher. Then she started laughing hysterically. I think I remember her asking if I was okay as she helped me back out of the gigantic kitchen appliance and, still giggling, checked my sole wound—a deep dent on my shin bone. My kids love to hear her tell that story on me.
A few years ago when my and my sister’s kids were all still little and easily entertained without the aid of electronics, Mom, Sis, and I decided to take the kids on a “park marathon” and visit as many of the public parks in Miami as we possibly could in one afternoon. We hit ‘em all and the kids were thoroughly dirty and tired by the time we finished at the last park. The kids were all lollygagging on the jungle gym after we told them it was time to go, so to get their attention we adults decided to tell them goodbye loudly and walk toward the cars. I was ahead of Mom and Sis for who knows what reason and this gave them the perfect view of what was about to happen.
I stumbled. On what? Oh, I have no idea. Could’ve been a little piece of gravel, could’ve been a blade of grass, could’ve been a pesky piece of air for all I know. I really don’t have to have a reason to fall; sometimes I just do. And, as with most of my falls, I am aware that I have just created a potentially hazardous situation for myself by merely walking and, because of my vast experience, I have become an expert at tucking and rolling. I still have a scar on my knee from a fall I didn’t have time to tuck, roll, gasp, or blink, so I know the importance of such skills as the tucking and the rolling. So on this particular day, as I tripped over that pesky air in the parking lot, I had enough presence of mind to tuck and roll; however, apparently I not only tripped over air but also a switch that slows down time because Mom and Sis said I fell in perfect slow motion. They said it was the most graceful fall they had ever seen. I tripped, I gasped, I turned my hip, I bent my knee, and I rolled slowly over and over about four times until I stopped and time sped back up again just in time for my mother and sister to begin guffawing, cackling, and absolutely hee-hawing until one of them declared they couldn’t breathe and the other one said she was pretty sure she wet her pants. They still speak of that incident, my epic slow motion fall, and instantly begin giggling.
Last week Mom, the kids, and I took off to central Oklahoma to visit my sister for Spring Break. She just moved 200 miles away and I had yet to see her new apartment. After we arrived and got settled, she took me on a tour of the apartment. The first room was the main bathroom, and my goodness, you could put a twin bed in that thing and still have room to shower, shave your legs, and brush your teeth all while doing a little jig. I’m telling you, it is a HUGE bathroom.
We stayed up late that night visiting and finally turned in after 1 a.m. The next morning Sis had to work so Mom and I got up at 6:30 to see her off and start our day of sight-seeing and shopping. Mom headed to the kitchen to start coffee while I stumbled down the dark hallway to the bathroom.
I wish I could say that the details are foggy and I don’t remember what happened, but truth is I know exactly what happened—I fell. In my sister’s bathroom. Face first on the floor with no warning, no tucking, no rolling, no nothing. One second I was upright and walking, the next I was face down. Boom. Mom said she heard a muffled “whump” and called my name. I didn’t answer, what with my face planted on the floor and all. She hollered my name again. No answer. I was still face-down on the cool linoleum and I heard her coming down the hall. Oh yes, I was quite conscious and aware of what was going on. No blissful knocking myself out in that auditorium of a bathroom; there was absolutely nothing in the way to bang my head against. I again heard my mother call my name, more frantically that time and next thing I knew, instead of blinking blindly at the floor, I was able to see because Mom had reached the doorway and had flipped on the light.
She said my body lay in such a perfect still pose that morning, she could’ve drawn one of those chalk outlines the CSI folks on TV draw around bodies at a crime scene. And even though the light was on and she was standing there, still I didn’t move. Why, I’m not sure. Maybe I was hoping for a delayed unconsciousness. Maybe it was because I was still tired and decided to finish my night’s slumber right where I was. Maybe it was because I was stunned at the suddenness of my fall. Or maybe it was because my mother was laughing so hard at me that I, too, began to laugh, thus rendering myself unable to move. I heard her gasp for air amidst guffaws and ask, “Are you okay?” and then I pushed myself up to my hands and knees, rolled to a sitting position, looked up at my darling, precious mother who was doubled over laughing and asked the simple question, “What on earth does that woman mop her floors with?” which of course, threw us both into gales of laughter again. She held a hand out to me, but I declined because she was still laughing so hard she was probably weak and I’d have pulled her down with me. Oh, wouldn’t that have been a story to tell?
After I got up and we made sure I wasn’t wounded or bleeding or hurt in any way, she said, “I HAVE to call your sister!” and she was off like a rocket to find her cell phone and place the call. I heard her laughing and relaying the story to Sis, who of course made me laugh again. She handed the phone to me and Sis said, “I meant to tell you that bathroom floor is really slick in your sock feet.” This threw me into such a fit of laughing that I saw black spots and could hardly breathe. When I regained my ability to speak coherently I then said, “I was barefoot!”
Diva
