Feeling the pain

A few days ago my mom was freaking out expressing her concern about our decision not to reinstall the safety gate at the top of the stairs after Grace's repeated yanking on it pulled the giant plastic anchors out of the drywall. I told her Grace was navigating the stairs like a pro, and I was more likely to fall. Then I said a handful of words I immediately wanted to take back: "Huh, I haven't fallen in a while." I knocked on wood, but last night, sure enough, I fell down the stairs into our living room. Nothing was bleeding, no one saw me (except Brady, who was all, "You are such a clutz.") and this morning I couldn't find a single bruise on my body. But now? EVERY PART OF MY BODY HURTS, including my toes. I'm old.

I've tried to be a good sport about falling over the years, mostly because it usually happens in public, and no one likes a crybaby. I once fell down the stairs into the shoe department at Nordstrom (downtown, of course), a sort of sacred place for me. Within minutes I was surrounded by men in dark suits talking into their wrists. I muttered something about the steps being wet to save face, so you know somebody watched THAT video over and over to make sure there would be no litigation. Then I slunk off and bought a pair of fabulous, expensive and totally impractical shoes to soothe my nerves. When I got home, and I swear I am not making this up, there were TWO RIGHT SHOES in the box. I went back the same day.



I had a spectacular fall down a looooooong flight of stairs at a train station in Italy. When I finally hit bottom I was like a beetle stuck upside down, legs waving in the air, because I was wearing a big backpack. My friends helped me up and I limped to the hotel with blood soaking through the knee of my jeans. Sigh. Good times.

I could go on, but I think I'll just start a category called "injuries" and share a good one from time to time. Feel free to join in. Now I'm gonna go have a nip of tequila and try to get into bed without incident.