15 August 2008

And we all fall DOWN!

Is it just me, or is the earth more unstable these days? Unstable as in the ground beneath my feet seems like it is rockin' and rollin'. You may not know this, but earthquakes DO happen in Oh-hia-ia. I remember one that was a 4.0 on the Richter scale a few years back. Unfortunately, I can't blame this one on a quake.

Returning to my car at the end of the workday (on the days that I don't bike) is apparently treacherous, and hazardous to my health. I stumbled crossing the street the other day, wrenching my heel in a pothole that was just large enough to grab on to the heel of my shoe. But the pièce de résistance was falling in a parking deck. In the middle of the day. I was NOT walking and CrackBerry-ing. I know that's hard to believe, but it is true. I was NOT wearing shoes that are eleventy inches tall. Again, I know that strains credulity, too. (Mucho thanks to MotherMe for the word eleventy, I plan to use it often!) I *WAS* wearing my glasses, something I frequently forget to do, so I could see just fine. I wasn't drunk. (Hey! Quiet down out there in the peanut gallery! I don' wanna hear that you don' belief- belief - trust me on that.) I don't have an ear infection, or an inner ear imbalance, and I wasn't any more clumsy than I usually am.

What I *did* do was miss a step. Fell coming out of a stairwell, by missing the last stair, the one that takes you from the LEVEL base of the stairs to the LEVEL floor of the garage. The one that is the EXACT. SAME. COLOR. as the garage floor. The one that is lighted rather poorly, too.

Now since this was at work, that means I have to fill out paperwork, but only if I tell someone, right? I mean, my pride was far more damaged than my body. Here I am, elegantly dressed, hair done, makeup in place, accessories to match, striding confidently to my car that is going to take me to a meeting. Next thing I know, I'm sprawled out on the garage floor, sandals off of my feet, glasses around my neck instead of perched on the bridge of my nose, purse dumped, BlackBerry in several pieces scattered around me. (No BlackBerries were injured during this stunt. Just in case you were worried. I sure was!) I'm on the very dirty garage floor, and DAMN did my hand hurt when I picked myself back up. I landed, you see, on my right hand first, then my left knee, and finally my right knee, skinning all three quite nicely.

After that, I'm pissed. Really ticked. At my own clumsiness, but also at the people who manage the parking deck. The deck has been closed all summer undergoing "repairs". What repairs? They weren't painting, or refreshing the safety features of the garage. They weren't fixing the gaping holes all over the garage. They certainly weren't cleaning the garage. (Took me quite a while to scrub the dirt out of my knee!) So seriously, WTF were they doing?

I called the parking management entity. I explained the problem. They were fairly un-moved by my request to fix said problem. I then explained that I had fallen as a direct result of the problem. That got their attention. But also: Ooops. Because now they want me to fill out all kinds of paperwork and promise on the soul of my firstborn that I'm not going to sue them. Joke's on them right there, eh? Not going to have a firstborn!

All of that necessitated me also telling the colleagues in my office, as I had to have a "supervisor" sign the paperwork. Again, I say: Ooops. Because I am never ever going to hear the end of this....they'll harass me about not tripping over stuff for the next....well, forever.

Feel free to join in.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't take credit for "eleventy". That one came from Sarah Bean. But it is a smarmy little word, ain't it?

Lucy Arin said...

It sounds like it should be a word, and then you realize it so isn't. I think it is hilarious, like something S4 or O2 would say.

Anonymous said...

Oooh I like this variant: "eleventy-pepsi"