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Sometimes, when I’m
being fanciful and imaginative, I like to pretend that I was once graceful and
classy. Sadly, the reverse is more likely to be true. I was, wait…let me
rephrase that, I AM, currently and almost always, awkward and klutzy as hell.
It’s pretty much been perfected into a talent at this point.
Yes, the
coordination gene skipped my generation, leaving me with the special ability to
trip over lint and flat floors. I kid you not. FLAT. FLOORS. I can walk
across a floor whose only problem is that my two left feet have trod upon it.
That is the only offense that I have committed. Walking. On a level surface. With
the amount of times that I have tripped, fallen, almost tripped, or almost
fallen, there is a great possibility that I may have 4 left feet. There’s
no way just the two of them are causing that much havoc. I mean, what the heck
is going on down there? Can’t you just get your act together? I have to channel
my inner drill sergeant and call cadence just to get those knuckleheads at the
end of my legs into formation!
If I’m not
tripping over imaginary cracks in the ground, then there’s also the possibility
that I may be stepping wrong or walking out of my shoe. Because why not liven
things up with stepping out of your show and falling straight into the sharpest
corner of furniture nearest you? Yeah, that’s going to leave a mark. And a
honking bruise. It’s easier to hide the evidence of your total lack of grace in
the winter. Layers hide those mystery bruises (because half the time I don’t
even know what piece of furniture I ran into this time) and scrapes that only a
supreme klutz manages to accumulate. Lucky me that shorts season is right
around the corner.
I think I need to
invent a glue stick type of product that you rub on to remove skin contusions.
I’ll call it “Bruise-B-Gone” and make a fortune and finally hire someone to
take over the tedious task of cooking dinner every damn night. And when I’m
filthy rich from my miraculous “Bruise-B-Gone” geniusery (Brillianceness?
Cleverance?) I’ll buy some tropical island and sip mai tais on the beach every
day while thinking up new sparks of geniusery.
But that’s beside
the point. Focus! Now where was I? Oh right.
As if that wasn’t
bad enough, my own body fluids have taken to attacking me. Sure, saliva SEEMS
innocent and normal. Until you’re choking on it because you can’t even manage
to swallow your own spit without breathing at the same time. Basically, I’m
aspirating my own saliva. My own body can’t separate swallowing and breathing
because the awkward gene is so strong that it trumps basic biologic functions.
That gawky gene is so strong that it blocks out years of inherit evolutionary operations.
That’s a special kind of stupid right there.
And you can’t cough
or choke in a pandemic without being branded with a giant scarlet C on your
chest. Hastily trying to stop choking on your own bodily fluids long enough to
stammer out an apology and explain that you just swallowed wrong. Evil eyes
trained on you like you’re Typhoid Mary. It’s embarrassing! Between that and my
allergies, I’m pretty much a pariah to the hyper-hygienic community. Come to
think of it, it’s pretty crappy that my sinuses are also ganging up on me. Like
being an uber klutz wasn’t bad enough, now I’m a runny nosed-itchy eyed-histamine
carrying-snotty mess on top of it? I’d roll my eyes at that but I can’t because
they’re so allergy stricken that the mere action will make me want to itch them
until they fall out. Since I need them for a pesky thing called sight, I can’t
rub them into a giant pile of eyeball ash. So I guess I’ll verbally roll my
eyes and heave a virtual sigh at the unfairness of being betrayed by the body
that I’ve made my home in for the last 41….I mean 29….years.
If that’s not enough
proof of the awkwardness that I have in spades let me also tell you that I can
trip UP stairs and trip DOWN stairs. It has nothing to do with the direction I
am travelling and everything to do with foot placement. (Maybe cadence would
come in handy here too.) I can walk by a wall, misjudge my proximity to said
wall, and crash into it as I walk by. (My house has a lot of these fast moving walls
that jump out in front of me.) My shins can unerringly find the sharpest corner
of the stand or coffee table. My pinky toe threatened to leave a few years ago
if I didn’t stop stubbing it. (Only the right one though. I guess the left toe
has every smidge of what little bit of poise and dexterity I was bestowed with
at birth.) I can hit my head on cabinet doors that I opened. Not like I walked
into a cabinet door that someone else left open. Nope. I do it to myself. Like
I don’t even know how accident prone I am or something. I burn my mouth on
liquid that I KNOW is hot but convince myself that 3 quick breaths cooled it
down enough not to scorch a path down my esophagus. I break fingernails opening
a package. I have poked myself in the eye, stabbed my nostril with a fingernail
trying to itch middle part there (The nose island?) and whacked my elbow on
more things than I can count. (It’s NEVER funny either.) It’s like my body is
trying to kill me in small, teensy degrees. Either that or it’s the worst
hitman ever.
If anyone read
this post and felt immediate kinship with your clumsy cousin, please come to
our monthly meetings. They are held in the basement of a bubble wrap factory. We
serve tepid tea and fig newtons. (We found those to be the least harmful refreshments.)
We can’t fix you, but we can at least laugh at you and give you something to
laugh at in return. And if your kids are like mine and following in your
tripping footsteps, you might want to start investing in some bubble wrap of
your own. Or at the very least, a cool looking helmet.
Need more mayhem? Find me on
FaceBook with all the other gen X generation (modern mom mayhem).
I can also be found on the
Instagram doohickey, trying to be hip like all the millennials (modernmommayhem)
Want to share your stories, dirty limericks, funny observations, or just say hi like all the coolest Boomers? Send me an email to: modernmommayhem@gmail.com
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