I admit I’m not the most graceful gal in the world. I am always in a hurry so that may have something to do with it. Maybe not.

When I was a kid, my mom put me in gymnastics to try to make me more graceful. The problem was, I was too tall for that sport. (And, I had ZERO talent in that area.) I was surrounded by tiny girls while I was a tall, skinny, gangly thing, towering over my fellow classmates. The coach was also very tiny, having been a former professional gymnast. I think I was eight or nine years old at the time and I was taller than her.

One day, she was spotting me on the uneven bars and I fell…ON HER. She pointed her finger, and yelled at me, saying I could have hurt her, or even broken one of her bones. All true! She told my mother that I was too clumsy for the sport and, poof, I was no longer in gymnastics class.

Over the years, I broke my nose (swimming accident), tore some tendons in my ankle (running from a guy who was mad at me for…well, that’s a story for another day), sustained a serious upper leg injury (falling off the boat), broke my toe (also falling off the boat), and much more. I currently have a huge bruise on my ankle. I dropped a full bottle of water when I was walking. It bounced off the tile floor, and slammed into ankle.

And, most recently, I gave myself a black eye. No, I will not be posting pictures because it was NOT pretty. I avoided leaving the house for two weeks because nobody who saw me would EVER believe what REALLY happened.

Here’s what happened. Really!!!

It was movie night. We were lying in bed watching I-can’t-remember-what, and snacking on cheese and crackers. I’d put them on one of our large dinner plates. Ceramic. Heavy. More dangerous than it looks… So, we’d finished our snack. I put the plate in my left hand, and went to get off the bed. However, Tank, our ginormous Great Dane/Black Lab mix, was zonked out on the rug by my side of the bed. I, of course, did not want to interrupt his slumber.

So, with my left leg still hanging off the bed, and my left hand still holding the plate, I tried to put my right foot OVER Tank so I could then stand up. I got my right foot on the floor, pushed myself off the bed with my left foot and, at that exact second, Tank (remember, he is HUGE) stood up. In doing so, he lifted my right leg off the floor and I was momentarily suspended in midair (at least that’s how it seemed while my mind processed everything in slow motion). Before I knew it, my butt hit the floor and the plate I’d been holding crashed into the left side of my left eye. And, I never dropped the plate!

Brian, who has watched me injure myself over and over and over again, simply looked to his right, and said, “Are you kidding me?!?!”

He then got up, helped me up, and got an icepack for my head, which was bleeding. I also had a bloody knee. The next morning, my eye swelled up a bit. That wasn’t the problem. It also started to turn black and blue.

It didn’t stay that way for long, though the bruise took a couple of weeks to fade. There’s still a small bump but it’s not noticeable.

Living with Tank is like living with a small horse. Thank goodness he’s potty trained! I now wake him up and make him move before I get out of bed.

REMINDER: The Winter 24-Hour Short Story Contest is only a week away! 

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