In which Ren totally turfs it.

I’m gonna start this with two confessions. They aren’t great secrets or anything but they are sort of shameful. And it will all tie together somehow…I think.

First, I am not the most graceful person you have ever met. And if you have ever met me, right now you are laughing. But despite years of dance training and such, I still can manage to fall down the stairs, sit down on the stairs to wipe off the blood and then turn around and fall UP the stairs. On the way to my final exam for a college acting class I feel down a flight of cement stairs and had to deliver my scene with blood running down my knees. And I have actually sustained a serious HOUSEKEEPING injury that involved a trip to the emergency room, a CAT scan and a course of antibiotics. I am, to be succinct (too late), clumsy.

That said, I am always, always the first to laugh at a kid turfing it on his/her skateboard, My husband says I am a terrible person for this but I don’t wish them any bodily harm, I just love to see skateboarders bite it (but hey, I do stop and make sure they get up and brush themselves off. If they were lying there on the ground moaning in pain I would totally stop to help them…after I stopped laughing). And my husband is the one who calls the police on the skaters in the street. I’m the one who likes to run around the house yelling SKATEBOARDING IS NOT A CRIME! (To which he always responds, “Yeah, but loitering is.” I totally married Mr. Wilson (C’mon, Dennis the Menace’s next door neighbor, the grumpy old man, you knew that, right?)

Part of this comes from being a kid who, obviously, took headers off my skateboard quite often. But there is an odd pride when you fall off a skateboard, you know? You attempted to do something stupid, to perhaps fly down a hill on a little piece of wood with for tiny wheels on it and even if you aren’t exactly successful…well…a crash is just as successful, I suppose. But, the thing is, I get really upset when people just fall. Skateboarding is one thing, you put your own life in peril but when anyone falls on TV, I gasp and clutch my pearls until I see them get up, never mind real life. I am terrified of falling so I just assume that everyone else is too. Dude, when they did that thing at the last summer Olympics and that guy was running through time and when he got to 1940’s when the Olympics were not held because of the war and he falls? I gasped and said “Oh my gosh, I hope that poor guy was ok!” and then I felt stupid because it was just intended to represent the faltering of the Olympic spirit or some such nonsense. Do you have any idea what I am talking about or am I the only person that watched the Athens opening ceremonies?).

Ok here’s the part where it all ties in…It was rainy last night and I needed to stop at the store on my way home. That’s all fine, I have no problems with rain or grocery stores. I put my jaunty little rain hat on (no, seriously, it’s jaunty) and I buttoned my coat and got out of my car and walked across the parking lot and I was fine. I was fine until I hit the section of the parking lot that is painted as a cross walk and is suddenly really smooth from all the paint and dude, I totally went down SPLASH in a huge puddle. I have no idea how I landed but bruised my knee and elbow on one side while the other side of my body was completely soaked. On top of it all, however I fell required me to shift to get up and thus sit in puddle, so I got even more soaked. I had a passing moment of “Oh no, I am going to die in this puddle, in this very crowded parking lot in front of this very busy store in an extremely busy city…oh, I guess not.” And a very nice older woman asked me if I needed help. I considered saying yes because the bag boy at this particular store is really more of a bag MAN and is quite handsome and lovely and actually looks capable of helping a girl carry her groceries so I’m guessing he could help me off the ground but I said no and stood up. I was fine. A little wet, a little shaken (not stirred) and a little bruised…ok actually, I was a lot wet, so I decided to just go home. I squished my way to my car, found a towel to sit on and drove home, sniffling. I just fell in a parking lot. My knee hurts and I am wet down to the socks and waaaaaaaah. It was all terribly pathetic.

Today I am a little stiff. I somehow managed to twist my back a bit and my knee hurts like the dickens but I’m seeing this all as karma. I will no longer laugh when a kid on a skateboard turfs it.

Oh, who am I kidding?

*Just in case you were wondering, I do say things like “Oh my gosh” and I do “clutch my pearls” (this is that movement that your mom does when something startles her and her hand flies to her sternum as she gasps) which is slightly embarrassing and not at all punk rock of me.