My brother, LunaticWriter, is finally getting even with me. He bided his time, remembered things he knew I’d forget, and then began commenting on my blog.
I’m a klutz. I’m also very open to experimentation. And I like to eat.
- when i was a wee thing, i ate (a) my mother’s birth control pills and my aunt’s morning sickness pills one day. got my stomach pumped. (b) some paste floor wax that my grandfather had melted to make it easier to work with. got my stomach pumped. (c) ate some blue paint that was left in the garbage cans by our next-door neighbours when they moved out. gave my mother a heart attack when i told her the phisohex tasted funny. why i thought blue plaint was phisohex,and why i thought either option was edible, i’ll never know. fortunately she detected the tale-tell signs of blue paint on my teeth and gums and took me to the hospital. i had my stomach pumped. As far as I know, i have not had my stomach pumped since that time.
- fortunately one doesn’t get one’s stomach pumped for tasting the vanilla extract (it smelled so good, and tasted so horrible) or the crisco (it looked so thick and creamy and beautiful and tasted terrible) or accidentally swallowing a whole small gherkin when mom came into the kitchen at the very moment i was sneaking said gherkin. that hurt so much i don’t know how to describe it, but if you want to know, nibble the end off a small gherkin and have someone walk into the room and scare you. on second thought, don’t. it’s no fun. i also swallowed an ice cube whole, and it got stuck in my throat until it melted. i don’t remember if i consciously decided to drink some warm water in an effort to assist the melting process, or if i stupidly just stood there whinging until it melted. and in the olden days we used metal ice trays, and one day i licked it. don’t ask me why. it was another of those impulses that can’t be explained. fortunately i had the brilliant idea to run some warm water over it so that it would release my tongue, so i didn’t have any scars. i did, however, treat the metal ice tray with a lot more respect until we got the nice plastic ones that don’t stick to your tongue if you lick them. not that i’ve tried lately, and although my curiosity is whetted, we don’t have any plastic ice cube trays in the refrigerator right now.
- i had a really bad fall at home one night while my parents & siblings were away, and i got all ambitious and decided to clean the kitchen. i slipped and fell on some tuna juice that somehow eluded our cats, and landed on my butt so hard i couldn’t get up. diagnosis: bruised tailbone. i didn’t know before then that people had tailbones, but decided they were extremely inconvenient. it meant i couldn’t jump on the trampoline across the street, and when i snuck and jumped on the trampoline before i was supposed to, i fell all wrong and landed on the coils on my tailbone.
- we lived at the bottom of what i recall to be a very steep hill. the cool thing was to walk your bike to the top of the hill and ride down with no arms no legs. but if you didn’t want to crash through the picture window of the house at the base of the hill, you had to grab the handlebars and make a mad turn left, missing the gravel patch and coming to a triumphant stop. well, once i didn’t turn in time, skidded in the gravel patch and ended up with gravel embedded in my knees and elbows, ruined my clothes, and had the insult to injury thing by my mother stoically digging out the gravel and painting my elbows and knees with gravel, thus ensuring that i would not be so foolish again. (of course i was, because it was a matter of honour; however, i never landed in the gravel patch again.)
- okay. yes, i did roller-skate over my wrist, and still have no idea how i managed that, particularly considering i’d forgotten it. i never learned how to roller-skate well, and those were in the days we had two wheels side by side front and back, instead of four wheels in one neat row. no, i never managed to even stand up on a pair of roller blades, and i have no idea how anyone can. back to the wrist, i probably wracked up and tried to untangle myself, skating over the wrist in the process. it hurt like billy blue blazes, which is probably why i made myself forget that particular injury.
- we’ve already mentioned the broken toes.
- i sprained my ankles on various occasions, including slipping and falling at the swimming pool.
- i sprained my wrists on various occasions, none of which strike me as particularly memorable.
- i burned the crap out of my hand when i was transporting a pot of boiling chicken (sorry chicken, i wouldn’t do that now–it would be a pot of boiling veggie) broth and lost my balance. the broth ended up pouring itself over my right hand. it was a serious burn, and had i known what i know now, i’d have gone to the emergency room. i’ve also burned my hand a time or two by accidentally picking up a cookie sheet before i realized it was still oven-hot.
- i cut the crap out of my hand because instead of doing the sensible thing and using a glass brush i forced my too big hand with a dish rag down the too narrow glass which of course shattered and cut my hand. i did have to go to the e/r for that one, but fortunately they were able to use butterfly bandage on it so i didn’t have to get stitches.
- and yes, the day before my mother’s second wedding, i superglued an earring to my thumb. when i realized what had happened, i just sat at my desk numbly repeating, “how can i play the piano tomorrow with an earring superglued to my thumb?” i worked at UTMB in the media department, so the guys got some acetone thinking that it would loosen the bond. but the bond didn’t take kindly to the acetone, so i reluctantly went to the e/r. they were very nice at triage, and only twitched a little every time they looked at my thumb. i ended up in a little room all by myself with my left hand immersed in grease release. do they even make grease release anymore? because that’s some seriously good stuff. it slowly began lifting the earring from my thumb and started getting all dissolvey with the fake plastic earring and the skin and everything. every so often a different doctor/nurse/intern/med student would come in, gravely examine my thumb, try hard not to laugh, and solemnly leave the room. i think all but one of them managed not laugh until they got into the hall, and i realized that i’d have been laughing too, but still! was it so unusual that everyone within earshot had to come examine my stupidglued thumb earring? i did play the piano the next day withOUT an earring glued to my thumb, and from then on, if an earring breaks, i throw it away.
- i slammed my thumb in the car door numerous times. i did not, like freaky angel’s mother, slam my head in the car door, and she has my sympathies because i know how badly the thumb hurt. i have also slammed my fingers in the refrigerator door, which hurt like a sonuvagun.
- i’ve clocked myself good and thoroughly getting in and out of the car, just misjudging the amount of space i had, and those hurt quite badly.
- i’ve twice, within a week, walked head on into a clear glass window, at the post office the first time, and at work the second time. nasty bruises, lots of pain, and lots of mockery from my sister.
- i slammed my breasts between two pieces of cold steel and stood there while the compression got more and more strong. oh, wait–that was a mammogram. never mind.
- i’ve fallen both up the stairs and down the stairs with a multitude of injuries issuing therefrom. my most recent trip down the stairs was or 3 weeks ago, and i thought i was going to die. seriously.
- i’ve slipped on icy patches, and i’ve slipped on rainy patches, and i’ve slipped on patches that were just there. one of my more memorable tumbles which was thankfully unwitnessed by anyone took place at work before we moved into the new location. i was walking into the copy room, standing confidently on my feet one moment and landing hard on my back the next moment. as i lay unceremoniously on the floor, trying to catch my breath, i was praying that no one would see me and drag me off to HR to report an injury, because what was i supposed to say? employee is terminally klutzy?
so is it any wonder that i have all sorts of deliciously painful ailments like soft tissue injuries in the back and patello-femoral pain syndrome? heck, any day that i don’t have to hobble on crutches or wheel along in a wheelchair is one more day i don’t have to confess my klutziness. (but i will confess that with the way my knee’s been hurting, i wouldn’t mind a pair of crutches.)
okay, lunatic, have i omitted anything else?
wow, that is a LOT of injuries for one lifetime. i knew you had your stomach pumped a lot as a kid but i didn’t know the full extent of your hospital visits.
this post made me hurt just reading it. poor faithie.
OMG!!! I thought I was a klutz, but I have nothing on you sweetie. Loved the mammogram comment. Grammy told me that those don’t hurt.
As for my mom; I would feel sorry for her for slamming her head in the car door, if her excuse each time hadn’t been that she thought her head was out when she closed the door.
With how accident-prone I am, I will probably catch up with you in no time. 😛
You DID forget… I think it was either a grasshopper or a cricket… that you either bit in half and spit out or accidentally swallowed half of. But I may be wrong about that in general.
LOL literally. Some of those I didn’t know about at the time. But I got married to your dad with a Bandaid on my knee from falling upstairs. And the summer after I graduated from high school I rode a horse for an hour and two days later, at Kilgore College which I was attending that summer, I fell down a whole flight of stairs because I was too stiff to walk.
Oh my! lol I love your honesty!