Without A Net

In polite company I would be referred to as accident prone.

But since I don't get that kind of company, MY friends and family will tell you I am a complete and utter klutz.

When I was a child I had the dubious honor of having gotten more stitches than anyone else I knew. I may still hold the record but I haven't compared notes lately. I've had stitches in every body part imaginable (and I do mean EVERY) from my head to my toes including my armpit.

When I was a little girl and I would fall down and hurt myself, before the tears would start or before I asked for a band-aid, my first words were"Do I need to go to the hospital for stitches?" And inevitably the answer was "Yes." And did you know my Dad gets really touchy when the emergency room takes more time than he deems prudent to examine his daughter's arm she just sliced open? Thirty-three years later I think they still might have a restraining order and his picture posted somewhere in Children's Hospital.

It's one thing to be gravitationally challenged as I like to call it, but the sheer stupidity of the ways I manage to hurt myself amazes even me. I fell down my cellar stairs and broke my foot because I was too vain to stop wearing a pair of wedge heels that had already landed me on my butt many times previously. I've fallen down a hill in my brother's front yard for no apparent reason, with absolutely no alcohol in my system. People that were present that day will tell you one moment I was standing before them, then right before their eyes I was suddenly rolling down a hill, ass over teakettle. Last year I dislocated my big toe by catching it in my opposite pants leg.

People, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

I've noticed that I seem to go on jags of klutziness. In other words when it rains it pours. Yesterday I broke two different toes in two separate incidents, twenty minutes apart. I seem to have found my God-given talent and the Lord knows I don't squander it.

I'm continuing my streak. This morning I managed to get toothpaste in my eye.

Don't try this at home folks. I'm what you call a "professional."