So I Have This Friend ...

When I was 23, I tore a ligament in my foot, but the doctor also thought I might have broken a bone in my foot, so I had to wear half a plaster cast ... it was gross. I hated it, and it wasn’t straight, so my foot twisted inward a little bit, and to this day, it still twists instead of being straight, and I’m bitter about it.

Anyway, I was in the church orchestra at the time; I played the flute. And we were playing at this rally at Something Baptist Church, and my sister and I were leaving early because of ... something, I don’t remember what. Of course, I was on crutches, but I also had to wear a skirt-–we all had to wear white blouses and black skirts. Well, my only black skirt had a slit up to the mid-thigh (not exactly appropriate for a church function). DEFINITELY not appropriate for swinging my leg around on crutches (because of course the slit was on the same side as my deformed foot). So I pinned the slit closed. With an earring. (MacGuyvered it.)

At the church I was going to at the time, there were side exits for the orchestra, so we could slip out quietly if necessary. Something Baptist Church did not have side exits. That meant I was going to have to leave the stage by going down the stairs in front of the altar. Right in front of everybody. On crutches.

So my sister and I got up to leave, and she TOTALLY TOOK OFF AND LEFT ME TO CLIMB DOWN THE STAIRS BY MYSELF. Furthermore, I also had to carry my flute.

To recap: I-–the clumsy poop who tore a ligament and (maybe) broke her foot in a supersecret wrestling incident–-was wearing a vaguely obscene skirt pinned together with the stud I’d taken out of my third ear piercing, and was carrying a musical instrument AND MYSELF down a set of carpeted stairs that had NO RAILINGS and was IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE.

Obviously, I fell. I mean, you totally saw that coming, right?

Fortunately–-if anything about this could be called fortunate–-I fell backwards. This gave me the opportunity to flail around with my arms in the air (my arms that were still holding the crutches, giving me the appearance of an animatronic pterodactyl dying over Tokyo). Also, the earring popped off the slit in my skirt and torpedoed some guy in the front row; I hope his eye’s okay now. Some trombone player caught me before I hit the floor and sort of carried me down the stairs by my armpits; I probably looked like a Vegas showgirl, what with my leg lifted at an awkward angle and my thigh hanging out of my skirt and my arms–and crutches–held at a 90 degree angle.

The entire audience had gasped when I first tumbled, and somewhere some videographer went, “YESSS!” because you know that would bank someone $25,000 on America’s Funniest Whatever. I had third degree burns on my face, on account of how red I was, and my sister missed the whole thing because she was already in the car and halfway home, that turd.

Oh, and … uh … I just made that up. That didn’t really happen. I mean, it sounds like it could have, but ... you know ... I just have ... a really good imagination. Yeah.