Anyone who knows me knows that I bruise ridiculously easily. I get that from my mom. Sometimes, I wake up with bruises the size of tangerines on my legs and I'm like, "whoa, I don't remember where that came from. I definitely feel like I should remember the instance where I hit my leg hard enough to cause THAT injury."
In fact, one summer I went to the dentists' office in shorts with massive bruises all up and down my legs, and the dentist was like, "You bruise really easily, don't you? You're like my wife, she bruises really easily too."
It's not often you get compared to a dentist's wife, but it makes you feel...really awkward. Especially when your mouth is full of cotton swabs and stretching implements while two people are picking at your teeth and one of those people is trying to make conversation. So all the response I could make to "You're like my wife, she bruises really easily too," was "eaurghhh? uhh huhhh."
Dentists. Apparently, the number one thing they don't teach you in dental school is "don't attempt to make conversation with the patients while you're drilling their teeth, injecting their gums, or cleaning out their mouths. Especially don't try to connect with them on a meaningful level during any dental procedures when you're telling them to squeeze your knee if it gets too painful. They might actually try to answer you and that could become hazardous. Missing teeth, facial scarring, a permanent speech impediment, or in extreme cases, death may occur. DO NOT ATTEMPT."
Death by dentist. Further proof that Clue should have taken place in a dentist's office and not a grand mansion.
(I'll explain all the dumb jokes later, or at least why they keep popping up).
I digress. Anyway, two recent klutzy incidents been really special, and by special I mean I haven't gone a day without whacking, hitting, or bruising myself. I tell these stories at my own risk, because I am aware how much any one of these will make me sound like an idiot.
Memorial Day, Tanner talked me into going out to a trampoline place in...somewhere south of Salt Lake. I think it was Lehi. Anyway, his cousin works there, and Tanner had been previously, so I decided to be a sport and go. Trampolines and foam pits are fun, right?
Yes.
When we got there, I quickly realized I was out of my depth. People were performing all kinds of fancy tricks off of the trampolines, and my husband, apparently a secret acrobat, hastened to join them.
My father was not fond of trampolines as a kid, so I never even learned how to front flip. I'm 20 years old and I don't know how to front flip. The extent of my trampoline jumping skill is jumping straight up, returning to the surface of the trampoline, and jumping straight up again.
Exactly like that, except sadly, I'm not an elephant. And, with everyone around me (including teeny kids no taller than my thigh) flipping around and acting like Olympic trampolinists, I wasn't about to waste trampoline space (or their time) to demonstrate my superior vertical jumping abilities.
So Tanner, the sweetheart that he is, took it into his heart and head that he would teach me how to front flip.
I'm 20. I know that's not too old to learn how to front flip, but it ain't exactly the optimum age either. So there I was, standing on a trampoline with Tanner trying to coach me through the steps of a front flip, feeling like a total idiot.
Our first few attempts mostly consisted of me doing flailing bellyflops into the foam pit, getting stuck (and grossed out by the number of how many people's feet had touched the smelly cubes before mine) and climbing out, humiliated, as some tiny kid performed a triple backflip suicide jump with ease off of a cliff and then walked across the ceiling.
I'm exaggerating. But that's how it felt.
So finally Tanner left me to practice on my own, because he wanted to practice a fancy-person move his cousin had taught him. So I stood there, jumping with my arms flapping up and down at my sides like some sort of deranged penguin, going "ONETWOTHREE GO."
Front flips combine two of the things I like the least: falling forward and speed. It's the same reason why I hate skiing, heights, and driving cars on the freeway.
So, I finally managed a semi-respectable front flip, and on the way down I was thinking, that wasn't too hard.
And then my knee collided with my left eye.
I gave myself a black eye trying to front flip. Granted, it wasn't a really bad black eye, but I did also manage to give myself a goose egg just above my eyebrow. I wasn't hurt so much as I was humiliated.
The second instance happened just yesterday. I was cleaning out the fridge of some of my more unimpressive attempts at cooking meals. I have a real sensitivity to smells, so this wasn't exactly my dream job. Since I was a kid, I could barely even heat up previously cooked cold food without gagging at the cold food smell. It's the number one reason why I decided that criminal anthropology was the wrong career path for me, and why I should write about murders rather than going out and examining decomposing corpses, sludge optional.
So, holding my breath, bag extended at arms' length, I walked across the parking lot and tossed it into our communal trash receptacle. Feeling relieved, I started the short jaunt back to my apartment.
On the bottom level of our complex, the swamp coolers/A.C.s hang out of people's windows, which are just at head-height. I was merely following the path I had taken out to the receptacle, watching for glass shards or other things that might be offensive to bare feet when my head collided with the sharp corner of a swamp cooler with a satisfying smack.
It's funny now, heck, it was sort of funny then, but the pain was dazzling. I let out a choice four letter word involuntarily and sort of stumbled back up to the apartment. The food smell was still sort of lingering, so I left the door open to try to air it out, and I decided it would be a good idea to vacuum. Head throbbing, I pushed the vacuum around the floor and it was that moment when Tanner decided to return home and sneak up on me. He likes to startle me, which normally is endearing and annoying in equal parts. But yesterday, he snuck up on me with the vacuum on, and my head was pounding. So I screamed, laughed, and started crying in that order.
Mr. and Mrs. Latham welcome goose egg and cut no. 2 on the right front side of Mrs. Latham's forehead.
That's where the lame jokes are coming from. I still have this dull headache deal going on, too.
But Tanner took good care of me and made me soup while I calmed down, and then he held me while we watched movies.
Moral of the story: watch out for glass paraphernalia, but watch out for low-hanging objects too. Oh, and tuck your knees in when front flipping.
& that's elementary.
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