Writing is like being able to put life into a snow globe. It takes the things that are too big and scary and reduces them into a form that I can put away when I want and look at from a distance. It also takes all that’s good in life and captures it into something I can take out when I want and look at close up and keep forever. It makes the bad things into something I can hold…and the good things into something I can hold onto. Both help so much that I need that little souvenir of life.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Improper Poll: Bad Trips


Recently Lynn Obermoeller wrote a hilarious post about tripping on the stairs. What’s funny is that I was just talking to another friend who announced she is very clumsy. She said she thinks it’s because she is always thinking “several steps ahead.” I’m incredibly clumsy when I’m sleep deprived, but I liked my friend’s explanation much better. Sounds positively cerebral to trip.

One of my clumsiest moments ever was when I was running on the treadmill in my chilly basement about ten years ago. I was wearing several layers of clothing and a new headset that stayed on my head better than ear buds and rendered my boom box obsolete. The problem came when I went to peel off a shirt and forgot about the headset. it got all tangled up in the earphones, flapping over my head like Lucy-with-a-loving-cup-on-her-head. Or Monica Geller with a raw turkey.

But the treadmill kept going, and I was spewed off the back still flailing about my head. It would have been funny, except that the finger I landed on had to go through months of physical therapy and is now permanently bent. I call it my “sports injury.”

Have you had any amusing trips?

14 comments:

  1. I rather like the idea that one trips because of being "several steps ahead". Way to put some shine on it!

    I don't trip a lot. But I can't be trusted around ovens or knives. :-) I almost think I'd rather stumble here and there!

    Pearl

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    1. No kidding! Unless you're tripping into ovens while holding knives....

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  2. Most of my trips are ugly...very ugly. I have noticed, though, that when I trip up in public my first instinct is to look around and see if anyone noticed. Yep, even before checking to see if anything is broken.

    Pat
    Critter Alley

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    1. You made me laugh, Pat. I do the same thing.

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  3. I trip ALL the time. I have even tripped going UP the stairs, which takes great talent.

    (And I do the same thing Pat does. I check out how many people witnessed my gawkiness. Fortunately, I often do it at times when there is not a crowd around to film it and then put it on youtube...)

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    1. You and Pat reminded me that I usually trip in large crowds of children. Fortunately they're not supposed to have their cameras out in school.

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  4. Trips, yes. Amusing, no. There was no one in the forest to hear me fall.

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  5. I was walking with my husband-at-the-time (HATT) out of a flooring store. We had a jeep at the time, and it was the height of summer. So I was wearing shorts. For some reason (geez, I wonder...), I was the one carrying all the carpet samples, while he walked freely, swinging his arms, jingling the car keys and (probably) whistling a merry little tune. I couldn't see the ground for the carpet squares flapping in my face, and tripped over the parking curb. Carpet square went flying, and every employee and customer stared out the huge floor-to-celing windows of the store. HATT laughed. My knee and shin were skinned up, a little bloody. But the physically pain was nothing compared to that embarrassment... Amusing? Um, not for me!! But certainly HATT got a kick out of it. Maybe one of many reasons he went from "H" to "HATT." Ha.

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    1. Sounds like your HATT and mine both flunked out of the same H school. Time to pass that HATT...to someone else.

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  6. My daughter is the family tripper, so much so that although her name is Christina we call her Grace. That isn't to say I haven't done my fair share of falling, but nothing as consistent as my daughter's, or as funny as yours! I'm glad all you hurt was your finger.

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    1. Thanks, Lisa! You're right - guess I'm lucky it wasn't a bigger appendage, because that thing hurt for several years!

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  7. Ouch. Just reading about your trip on the treadmill made me wince. I've had many embarrassing trips, so many my dad used to call me "Grace," and not because I was graceful. My most memorable and public trip was in high school during a varsity volleyball tournament. I ran back for the ball and somehow tripped as I returned the volley. The ball was launched and apparently went over the net to score a point, but I didn't see that--I saw stars. So, everyone in the packed auditorium saw my trip. I remember waking up with one of the nuns patting my face asking me if I was okay.

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    1. Now, see, if it's a REAL sports injury - especially one in which you passed out - you are pretty much a hero rather than a dork in my book!

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