Saturday, June 11, 2011

Battle with a Door Knob: Reflections on Clumsiness

First black eye

Every since I was a little kid I've been a bit clumsy.  Most of my childhood pictures have me sporting giant goose eggs on my head.  I was much like Maggie from the Simpsons, falling face first into whatever was in front of me.  For some reason I couldn't figure out that throwing my hands down to brace my fall would save me some brain cells one day.  Even in high school, after years of dance I still had issues with falling.  My dance team even gave me a fall limit per class period.  Once in college I fell in front of an entire History class, getting myself trapped between two chairs that had been screwed to the floor.  Not my most shining moment.  But believe it or not with all this falling I have never broken anything (except a few toes) and I had never gotten a black eye... until now.

You would think this incident would start off with something like "Last week at roller derby..." but instead it begins in the bathroom.  Yeah, seriously.  Don't worry, this will not be a TMI post, I was actually just bending down to pick something up.  It was when I straightened that it happened.  I must have straightened up way too quickly because all of a sudden there were stars exploding in front of my eyes and ringing in my ears.  With my hand to my head I literally felt the bump grow... very weird.  I figured the worst I had to worry about was headaches, which I've had for a few days, and missing at least one day of Camp Gladiator (Patrick did not, in fact, let me work out the next day) but I didn't think I'd end up with a black eye.  It's not painfully obvious, but the bruise that is still mostly on my forehead has moved down around my eye just in time for a wedding.  The space between my eyes is also swollen, but the goose egg is pretty much gone.  I would like to say "Yeah, I look bad but you should see the other guy..." but the door knob pretty much looks the same.  Maybe next time I'll win.

So what's your story?  Any epic bruises to tell about?

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