The Stumbling Stepmom

I think most people know the term “squirrel” from the movie “UP” or “tangent fly” if you are old like me. Suffice it to say, this episode is going to be a small but informative detour from my last two episodes. A little insight into the quirky craziness that is me.

So a little known fact about me . . . I am a klutz. A life long klutz. I don’t know if I never grew into my limbs or it was just a talent I was born with, but I am a klutz. A big one. Anyone who knows me would agree, so much so that none of my friends or family are ever surprised when I get hurt. I am pretty sure most of my friends just roll their eyes when they see bruises, that I am limping, on crutches, etc.

It started when I was very young. I think I was three or four years old at the time. Apparently I loved wearing my dad’s socks, but would never pull them on all the way. They would flop out in front of me when I walked, or in this case when I ran. One day I was running down the hallway in our mobile home and I guess I tripped on the extra part of the sock. I face-planted and ended up with my chin turning completely black. My mom said it looked terrible!

One time my alarm didn’t go off for work. When I finally woke up on my own and saw how late I was, I flew out of bed not realizing that somehow I had tangled my right foot in my sheets. My momentum caused the sheets to tighten, which made me fall out of bed with my right foot still tangled in my sheets. I broke two toes and had to wear flip-flops to work which was definitely against dress code.

Another time I was climbing a fence post to try and get over a fence. The post had a light dusting of snow on it. My foot slipped and I landed on my tailbone and bounced. I wasn’t supposed to be climbing the fence in the first place, so I didn’t tell anyone, which was hard because we lived on a dude ranch at the time and the road in and out was several miles of uneven and very bumpy dirt. Needless to say, I finally had to say something when I couldn’t help but whimper as we were driving into town.

One of my sister’s favorite stories about my klutziness was when we were headed out as roommates to take advantage of Olive Garden’s Never-Ending Pasta Bowl. I was the second person out the door to get into our cars. Somehow my first roommate was smart enough to step over the newspaper that was on our doorstep. I, however, didn’t see it, stepped right on top of it, and it rolled my ankle so badly that I heard something pop. Not wanting to ruin our outing, I told everyone I was fine, though my ankle was already starting to bruise and I was limping pretty badly. I insisted that we go eat first and then we could go to an Instacare. We ate our fill of pasta and then went and had my foot checked. Come to find out, I had torn a couple of ligaments in my foot, sprained my ankle and broke one of my toes. I was on crutches for the next few weeks.

Just a couple of days ago I was reaching around a wall in my house, without looking, to turn off a light. Something that I do all the time. This time I missed hitting the switch so I put my head around the corner to see why I missed it. I found it and flipped the switch off. Unfortunately, I miscalculated when I pulled my head back around the door and hit the door jamb with my face. Yes, my face. I hit it so hard my lip split against my teeth and it threw my head back! Needless to say, it bled a lot and I now have a busted lip with a nice purple bruise under it.

Obviously I keep life interesting with my accidents. Along with my klutziness, I have quite bad timing in things. such as being on crutches for my wedding. But that’s a whole other story!