I have never been graceful. The only time anyone calls me "Grace" is sarcastically after the latest clumsy thing I've done. Better descriptors for me include:
Clumsy
Butterfingers
Careless
Uncoordinated
Klutzy
Unlucky
Accident-prone
Injured
Let me give you a glimpse of what it's like to be graceless. For instance, it is not uncommon for me to ram my shoulder into a wall as I turn a corner too quickly in my own home. How is this possible?
Was I walking with my eyes closed? No.
Was I drunk? Despite the tasty homemade liqueur, no.
Did I forget where the corner of the wall was? Unlikely.
Was I daydreaming that much? Maybe.
Was I simply too focused on where I wanted to be instead of where I was at the moment? Possibly.
Along with being a total klutz, I have a propensity to injure myself in unique ways. Despite my clumsy nature, I have never broken a toe before. When I finally do, it's not from stubbing my toe, yet again, on the furniture that's in the same place it's always been, it's from my crazy new dog running over my foot.
I blew out a tendon in my wrist and injured my back when pushing a heavy object on wheels by myself. How could I have hurt myself if it was on wheels? The wheels were locked. Who knew those things could be locked?
I cracked my elbow by forgetting (again, how is this possible?!) that I was standing on a two foot wall rather than at the top of the steps going up to that wall. I took a step, expecting to land on the next step down and instead landed face first on the ground. Yeah, that was fun.
My sweetie met me while this arm was still in a sling; it should have been a warning to him. It only took me a year to total his car by swerving to avoid a young cyclist that turned unexpectedly in front of me. I rolled the car and walked away with only a bruise on my leg from the steering wheel. The lack of blood was rather surprising considering there was an open box of glass recyclables in the back. The damage was more to his trust of me, I think, than physical that time.
I did get whiplash once but it was not from a car accident. It was from sneezing. Do you have any idea how stupid you sound when customers at your workplace see your whiplash collar and ask, "Oh, were you in an accident?" and you have to reply, "No. I sneezed."? It was humiliating.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Public Service Announcement
If you sneeze violently as the norm, and by this I mean that your typical sneeze scares people around you, then you must obey one simple rule. When you sneeze, sneeze straight forward. Do not turn your head to the side as a violent sneeze could result in whiplash (and humiliation).
Cover your nose with a hanky, if possible, or turn your whole body to face away from someone or the table, but do not turn your head only. The force of the sneeze puts a lot of abrupt stress on the neck which it can more easily handle if moving straight forward rather than twisting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recently, I fell off my bike going less than 5 miles per hour because I took both hands off the handlebars at the same time to pull my shirt down so my undies wouldn't show. I know I can't ride without at least one hand on the handlebars so why did I do this? Someone, please tell me! Why do I do these stupid things?!
This morning, in typical fashion for me, I knocked a small heavy glass bottle off a cabinet shelf. It landed, also typical for me, squarely on my one bruised and broken toe. I have ten toes. Did it have to land on this one? Needless to say (but I will anyway), I am not a Happy Camper right now.
Is it any wonder my sweetie won't buy me power tools? I mean, I've had to prune branches six inches in diameter by hand with a pruning saw! However, I can't help but agree when he says he really doesn't want to have to call me Stumpy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I (almost) feel bad for laughing at you. I mean, laughing WITH you. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd the bike thing I feel your pain. I am a bad bike rider and Husband once took me riding. He said if it got difficult, simply peddle slower. I did. I was going over a tough rock crossing, so I peddled slower, and s l o w e r and eventually so slow that I wasn't peddling at all. I tipped over and was fully inside a wild rose bush. When Husband stopped laughing he said "Why didn't you put your feet down" and I replied "You didn't TELL ME THAT PART".
So see, I'm a bad bike rider AND I'm stupid. :)
Chile - Nice toe!
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be in the cards for me to make some homemade ketchup with the abundance of cherry tomatoes we're still getting. They should taper off soon due to the heat. But with their being so sweet, I can't help but feel the need to puree, season, and simmer... then smear it all over some oven fries!!
LB
Hahahaha! This is too funny...I know I shouldn't laugh. But wow, both Mr. Beany and I are graceful as a ballet dancer now.
ReplyDeleteI will say this though...After my first date with Mr. Beany I was flying high with happiness so I thought it would be a good idea to leap off of 20 flights of stairs to the ground (yes, 20). I did and twisted my ankle. So on our second date I hobbled all over the city with a cast type thing (I was very insistent we walk).
ReplyDeleteI feel bad for laughing, but I couldn't help myself. Mostly because I manage to do the same things once in while. Walking into a doorway and slamming my shoulder on it always puzzles me. How could I miss the doorway??? And stabbing toes on furniture that's always there... yep, done that too. So, I'm not just laughing, I'm sympathetic as well! :)
ReplyDeleteHey! I have a partial answer for you and the poster just above me: We all have problems with our proprioceptive system. Basically it means you don't have a very good sense of where your body is in space. Dancers, pro athletes, etc--they all have FANTASTIC proprioception. (I first learned about it because of in one of Oliver Sack's books there's a woman who completely loses her proprioception. She felt like a head without a body. We're not that bad, but it clued me into my problem.)
ReplyDeleteI even had physical therapy to help with it (mainly it was vestibular rehab as I had problems with dizziness too).
Funny, my DH doesn't like me working with power tools either!
Ya'll are mean, laughin' at me and stuff. ;-P
ReplyDeleteAnnMarie is right, I have lousy proprioception. I've had physical therapy for my weak ankle in which some of the exercises would help with that. I also had vestibular rehab when dealing with the vertigo which was entirely about proprioception and balance.
Now the question you may be asking yourselves is this: why is she still clumsy if she has all these exercises?
Um, because I quit doing them. Told ya I did stupid things...
You made me smile but I can't laugh at this! it's too close home for me after putting a stress fracture in my right radial head!
ReplyDeletebut one idea you have:
Was I simply too focused on where I wanted to be instead of where I was at the moment? Possibly.
THIS is one of my problems, I know.
Just go quietly back to your exercises, don't tell anyone, they'll never know you weren't doing them. that's what I tell myself anyway! :)
take care ofyourself,
shamba
P./S. 8 week dr. visit and my elbow is healing really well.
"I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much… because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting."
ReplyDelete- Robert Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
If you're laughing, then I'm laughing with you. If you're not, then I guess I'm laughing at you. (Sorry!) I'm laughing 'cause I know otherwise it would hurt.
I think I've done all of those things at one time or another. Especially bonking my shoulder on corners. I live inside my head, and my head made it around the corner just fine. It's the shoulder's fault for sticking out so far, not my fault.
Given a choice of which toe a fallen object will land on, the toe it will land on is the one which will hurt the most.
- natural corollary of Murphy's Law
Chile,
ReplyDeleteMy daughter runs into things all the time too - she falls down stairs and bumps into walls and stubs her toe on everything. Her middle name happens to be Grace so we always tell her to just say "well, Grace is my middle name!" but all this talk of proprioception and dizziness has me thinking - she's had awful trouble with dizziness this spring, and the pediatrician can't find anything wrong so she's sending us to an ENT. She's had the extensive hearing test and everything was fine, but we see the doctor on Friday. I'm going to look some stuff up about what you and Anne Marie were saying. I never even thought that the clumsiness and the dizziness could be related.
I have the same clumsiness problem! I like to just say I have really poor spatial reasoning. ;)
ReplyDeleteLaugh away, people, laugh away. While you're laughing, you'll run right into that wall because you're not paying attention. Then I'll be laughing. Haha
ReplyDeleteWhiplash from sneezing!!!
ReplyDeleteWhiplash from sneezing!!!!
My mind can't get around it.
Whiplash from sneezing!!!!!
Chile you write good stuff when you're ranting. I love it. Thanks.
My best poem is called "Crutch Therapy". It describes how much I hate crutches - from experience.
It was the door knobs in our last house that kept me in bruises. They were just the right height on me to catch in my sleeve edges and bring me to an abrupt stop. This house is much better - all low handles!
ReplyDeleteHope your toe is better :)
viv in nz
We, the clumsy of the world, Salut you! Ouch I just poked my eye saluting you. If you do get whiplash sneezing, just tell people it was a car accident- makes life eaier without those weird looks.
ReplyDeleteOh Boy....
ReplyDeleteI could have written this post.. the incidents are different but the results rather similar.
Your whiplash from sneezing is almost as humiliating as me having to explain to people that my back problem occurred "because I went for a walk".
Why is mine more humiliating?
Well, 18 months later I still have to tell people the same thing when they ask how I got injured and the problem ain't going away soon.
The slightly funny thing is that most people say I actually move quite gracefully... Up until the point where I beaned myself on the cupboard for the 3rd time today.
Kind Regards
Belinda
Well I learned something because I do have a violent sneeze and I sure don't want whiplash. I do run into walls too - but I consider myself coordinated, I just have a lot of things to do in a short amount of time and so there are bound to be collisions. By the way I also sometimes type faster than my thoughts I almost wrote I have a violet sneeze - I guess a violet sneeze would be a nice one - sounds like the name of a good mystery "The Violet Sneeze". I think the main thing is to slow down, but sometimes it just isn't possible. And sometimes when I am doing one thing I am thinking of another, that gets me in trouble too. Oh boy, what can we do.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine broke her ankle tripping over her puppy. My daughter's husband is so accident prone ~ he fell down the stairs: knocked himself out; fell down the stairs: knocked bem out; used a glue gun & it exploded in his hands; managed to drink coffee out of a cup that had contained bleach before the coffee... as a toddler bem would forever bang her head as she was convinced that there was nothing of her above eye-level. Huge puppy is always banging his head on the keyboard shelf for my computer. & me? I have days when I fall over ~ no reason, I just fall, I also slip, trip & otherwise show my lack of balance & yet I'm a dancer...
ReplyDeleteI walk into the corner of a wall all the time too. Why?!? And it always seems to be the part that shakes and makes noise so everyone knows I just walked into it AGAIN...
ReplyDeleteI really didn't know you could get whiplash from sneezing. That's amazing.
Oh, as another fellow klutz I feel your pain Chile, and you have my deepest sympathies! I'm not allowed to use power tools either, but manage to get into trouble anyway... I once actually hit myself between the eyes with a hammer. I was pulling out a nail with the claw end of the hammer and the nail suddenly broke free, and pow! I shrieked, my husband came running and found me rolling on the floor crying from the pain and laughing at the same time at the thought of man, no one's gonna believe this one! I got two black eyes, but happily didn't break anything. Now, when I announce that I'm about to do some handy work (and in our house, all brave attempts and DIY repair require grand announcements!), my husband will yell out, "got your stuff on?" and check to make sure I'm fully kitted out in my bright red hard hat, safety goggles, a dust mask, his brother's old lab coat (because I once managed to glue myself to the wall while installing wainscoting), gloves and work boots. Pretty hard to see where you're going while festooned with all this gear of course, so walking into walls is more of an issue...
ReplyDelete@Meadowlark - Don't feel stupid, your husband's instructions were clearly NOT complete!!! I went through almost the same thing! For awhile we rode together on a scooter, and for months my husband told me, "don't put your feet down, I can handle it." So one day we took a wrong turn into an alley and he did a sharp slow U-turn, and we fell over. As we were picking ourselves up off the pavement, he also demanded to know why didn't you put your feet down?! When I said because he'd told me not to, he grumpily amended his rule.
Hey Chile, hope your toe heals up quickly!
-Elli
Oh wow, I thought it was just me - there was a good reason I never got sent to ballet lessons like all the other girls ;)
ReplyDeleteI've been sitting at the same desk for 8 years and still manage to spin round in my chair regularly and slam my knee into the drawers.
We should all form a support group - meetings to be held in a padded room so nobody gets hurt :)
Sure glad to find out I'm not the only klutz. I've caught my pants pockets on kitchen drawer pulls often. And yup, hit my head on open cabinets above me, too.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I'd read a book called "Violet Sneeze" I think.
Killi, ow!
Elli - I think you win. Love your safety outfit description.
sealander -a support group in a padded room sounds like a grand idea but it would have to be a room without a door. Otherwise, there would invariably be fingers slammed in the door, doors opened into someone's face, splinters, vicious doorknob bruises, and of course the door hitting me on the butt on my way out.
I'm so sorry, Chile!
ReplyDeleteI'm a fellow clutz. I've broken my toe too many times to count (once running into a wooden statue case, another time into the wall), bruised several ribs playing soccer (an opponent was running straight at me, and I forgot to veer), and gotten rug burn on my forehead from a judo move gone wrong.
I also managed to sprain my ankle trying to do a cartwheel. I still can't do one. Sad!
I favor falling flat on my face in front of my friends or hitting my head on the exhaust hood over the stove. And things have a way of jumping out of my hands and flying across the room. Must be a sign of great creativity . . . or genius . . . or (let me think on this one a while!)
ReplyDeleteThanks Chile! ...but I'm pretty sure whiplash from sneezing takes the cake!! Who knew such a thing could happen?!
ReplyDeleteBe safe!
Elli :-)