It's autumn. It's all beautiful and shit but those leaves are slippery, dawg and that crisp air makes it a little slick in the morning, okay? For me, it's even worse because I'm a natural-born klutz.
It started when I was three-years-old and I tumbled down a steep flight of stairs while doing a fake wedding march with my life-size Roger Rabbit stuffed animal. Unfortunately, Roger didn't make it through the fall. He broke his neck. It was a sensitive issue for a while. There is evidence that it progressed throughout my elementary school years when I fell in mud on the last day of sixth grade school before summer break and walked around with a poop butt all day.
Some say there were slip-ups in junior high as well. There are few witnesses to corroborate the story, but as legend has it, I fell OUT of a blow-up swimming pool in my friend's backyard and proceeded to tumble down the hill along with all the water in the pool. There's also documentation on the incident, which is transcribed at least five times in the 2008 yearbook from my high school.
It even continued throughout high school. As a sophomore I went on vacation in Maui and cut my knee open on coral while surfing. Trust me—that story sounds way cooler than it actually is. In fact, it's embarrassing to the degree of ""ride to the emergency room on a golf cart down the freeway,"" ""tourists gawking and taking pictures of the nasty wound,"" ""guy who rented me the surf board trying to calm me down by telling me the story of when he smashed his face into coral,"" and ""mom passing out in the doctor's office at the sight of blood.""
Since I've been in college these accidents have been less severe, but far more frequent. I fall/trip/stumble/move awkwardly at least once a week. I fell while simply walking down the street outside Animal Sciences (even though I still blame the sidewalk's uneven nature) and ripped my jeans open. I didn't realize I was bleeding profusely until half way through my Econ power lecture.
I fell UP the stairs walking into Birge Hall one slippery fall day. Then, in an effort to leave the same building in one of those jubilant, Willy Wonka-like hops and skips after having done well on a test, I ended up hopping onto a patch of ice and doing one of those balance-wiggles until I fell down the stairs.
Sometimes in the winter, when University Avenue becomes an ice-skating rink, it takes me 15 minutes to get from Lucky to Vilas Hall because I'm penguin-waddling my way to class while desperately holding on to the side of the building. Then when it snows and there's enough traction on the sidewalk that I feel comfortable walking like a normal person, those little patches of black ice right in front Vilas Hall always fuck me over. Too many times I've taken that confident step onto a big patch of ice and ended up on my ass.
Once, I watched a guy fall on a patch of ice I was approaching on the sidewalk. I chuckled arrogantly and attempted to walk around the patch, failed, and fell ridiculously on my ass. Then, it was too late to warn the other guy walking behind me. He was already down before I turned around. While I'm still sitting on the ground, trying to get up, ANOTHER person does the balance-wiggle on the ice.
Does my presence on the ground not warn these people of something? Oh wait, that means the first guy plastered on the sidewalk should have warned me... Whatever, I'm a natural-born klutz, what's his excuse?
More recently, I fell walking out of a communal, co-ed dorm bathroom in France with only a towel on. That was only awkward because I don't speak French and they have a very touchy-feely culture. I immediately slunk to my room and cowered on my bed, rolled up in the fetal position.
But ever since the weather has been dewy and crisp so early in the morning, lately I've been noticing that those white pedestrian lines in the street are getting quite slick and that metal-grate path in the construction area next to Helen C. White is a fucking hazard for more reasons than that it's covering a daunting open pit, with a six-inch gap between it and the sidewalk—it's a fucking Slip n' Slide of broken tailbones.
My biggest klutz-a-phobia with this time of year, though, is leaves. Yes, the leaves are really pretty for like A DAY but then they just fall in your hair, stick to the soles of your shoes, crumble up into sheets of slippery powder on the sidewalk, and turn into patches of slime when it's raining.
It's throwing my balance totally off! Now I need to realign my chi, so I've started the traditional grieving process of a klutz by giving Roger Rabbit a proper burial and burning every remaining 2008 yearbook. Next, imma go chant the Hare Krishna mantra and see if John Lennon's ghost will channel my chi.
