« PersaCon 2005! | Cue the "Gimme a Break" intro song... »
May 11, 2005Ouch! And, again, ouch!
I've always been clumsy.
When I was a child, I ran into a pole because I wasn't paying attention. Loosened a baby tooth, which came out later that night when I was eating a bowl of corn. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't just an unusually hard kernel.
That moment pretty much set the tone for the rest of my life. Since then, I've tripped over countless items, brained myself on countless low-hanging cabinet doors, shelves, et cetera. I took a wall-mounted wine rack right between the shoulder blades just last week when I stood up from the kitchen table at the house of some friends.
I'm used to stumbling, tripping, falling, hurting myself. I don't keep the Band-Aid folks afloat or anything like that, but I've come to accept my clumsiness as a way of life.
But now, I'm starting to think I've taken it to a whole new level.
Last Tuesday night, I twisted my left ankle as I went down the stairs from my apartment to take out the trash. There were more stairs than I had anticipated, and the last one is painted to look like the ground.
Then, tonight, I managed to step into a hole in the grass out in front of my apartment building and do a number on my right ankle--a more severe sprain (or perhaps even break--I really can't put any weight on it), made all the worse for it having been the ankle I messed up a few years back when I took a tumble while helping some of my then-students with a video project.
I now have two sprained ankles, or one sprained and one broken ankle. This wouldn't be nearly so worrisome if I were a quadruped, but since I'm a biped, I'm not digging this scene too much.
Of course, maybe this is the universe's way of making me sit down and work on my thesis script...
Posted by patrick at May 11, 2005 02:40 PM
CommentsOuch! But I think the real reason is that the world is designed for a theoretical 5'10" human and those of us over six feet just run into all the things that the midgets designing them never thought of.
Yes, I too have the tendency to bump into or slam my head on things. Whoever decided that every apartment kitchen on the planet should have a hanging light fixture in it with the bottom six feet off the floor should be slapped. And tall=long arms, which have a tendency to knock into door jambs or walls, which are always too narrow or too close together.
Yet, surprisingly, I've only broken one bone ever -- in the last joint of the middle finger on my left hand. Slammed it in a window. And it was so damn close to the end of the bone that I literally came within about 2mm of not breaking it. I have screwed up the ankles a few times though. Despite my height, basketball is not my game, and never run down a flight of concrete stairs without a good plan on how you're going to land.
But take nature's message. Put your feet up and write. And you have the perfect excuse for a while to blow people off. "Gosh, I'd love to go ice skating, but..."
Good luck!
Posted by: Jon Bastian at August 25, 2005 02:12 PM
Post a comment