Ruts

On April Fool's day of this year, I was walking to my car at 6 a.m. Do you know how light it is at 6 a.m on the first day of April? NOT. ZIP. NADA. No Moon. I do have a street light at the end of my driveway to light my path though, which, as it will  turn out, will be a good thing.

I am walking across the small grassy knoll of  my tiny front yard. (In German, knoll means clod or lump, mind you. I looked it up. So keep this in mind.) I have a coffee cup in one hand, a bag of tie downs in the other and a backpack on a shoulder. I do not remember which hand had what or what shoulder the backpack was on.

This was during the time of the remodeling of my bathroom. I had backed the truck up to the front porch several, no, make that many, many, many times to unload sheetrock, beadboard, mud, paint, tiles, sink, etc.(Got the picture now?). I have tire tracks in the grass. (Do you know how heavy ONE piece of sheetrock is? Purty.  That's about all  I can tell ya. I should have muskles.)

So back to my story. As I 'stroll' across the front yard, my left foot does not, uh, plant itself correctly, or doesn't come up off the ground correctly, or it  falls in a hole or SOMETHING, which causes me to lose my balance. Now mind you this section of the yard is MAYBE 10 feet wide. So here I go trippin', stumblin, flyin', basically movin' in some form or fashion across the yard to my car which is sitting in the driveway. Do not spill the coffee! Do not drop the back pack. Stay upright! Do not fall! DO NOT FAAAAAALL!!! DAAAANG! I'm fallin', fallin', fallin'! ('Rawhide' music is playin' in my mind here.)

As I am goin' down, (Could I not have fallen on the grassy knoll? Could I not have just dropped everything and done a football roll? NOOOOOOOO!!!I have to struggle to stay upright for 10 frickin' feet!!) my left knee connects with the edge of the driveway (YOOOOOOW) and I see the bottom part of the passenger door comin' to meet my face. . OOOOOO NOOOOOOO! (Not quite what I said, mind you, but it is not printable) I'm fixin' ta bust my face, not ON, but INTO the car door!! I jerk my head up high! Well, as high as a person in panic mode can get when danger is headin' your way at lightin' speed! All I can think about is getting  my nose outta harms way. (Ya know people DIE from getting their nose smashed  into their face.) My coffee cup hits the mirror, (Did I mention that this is not a cup actually, it is a MUG. A heavy mug.) breaks, and my neck and chin hit the door. My left hand takes some of the collision. (OH! Wait! Wait! I DO remember what hand I had stuff in! Left hand the tie downs, right hand the cup. Still don't remember backpack.)

I unpeel myself from the car door (ya know like those cartoons when they get rolled over by a steam roller and unpeel from the pavement? That kinda peel).

I'm holding the handle to my cup. I really liked this cup too. My car is now washed in coffee: the windshield, the hood, the roof, the passenger window, front and back,  the passenger doors, the front passenger fender. There are pieces of cup all around my car, on my car, in the neighbor's yard, in the tree.Almost looks like snow, but not really.

I cannot find the tie downs. Turn around to see if I can find them. They are in the flower bed. Which is up against the house. A good 9 feet from where I originally started this America's Funniest Home Video wanna be stunt. (If someone had been there to film this, I woulda won first prize!) These were 4 of the bigger tie downs, ya know the kind that can  hold a truck on  a trailer, the ones with the ratchets and hooks. The bad was heavy. It landed just below my dining room window. Good thing I live in a pier and beam house and it is a good 3 feet of the ground. Otherwise they would have probably hit a window. .

As I try to stumble around pickin' up all of my crumbs, my knee is telling me VERY LOUDLY that it ain't feelin' toooooo good. I AM NOT GOING BACK UP THE STEPS TO GET TO THE FRONT DOOR AND CHECK MY KNEE. AM NOT! AM NOT! SUCK IT UP AND QUIT YOUR WHININ'! YOU'RE TOUGH! GROW SOME BALLS! SHUT UP! (I am really almost crying.)

I get as many pieces of the cup up that I can find, so  as not to run over them and chunk them in the trash can. Get in the car and go to work. Thanking the Good Lord, I do not have a stick shift anymore. When I get to work, I limp over to Reene and drop my jeans and get her to doctor my bloody knee. Did I mention that it is now hurtin' REALLY bad? She bandages it up so my jeans will not rub it.I limp across the parking lot and  up the step and go upstairs to my desk. I park it for the rest of the day.

I finally get go to the doc the next day. She asks me what did I do. I reply: 'Well, the grass and grape hyacinths are getting revenge on me for driving over them to unload bathroom materials. So yesterday morning, they had had enough and as I calmly walked to my car, they attacked. This is the result.'

She puts in the doctor report that I' tripped in a rut in my yard'. Now where did she get that??

It is now October and I can finally put some weight my bended knee. It is also back to normal size and color. Finally.

BTW-I found another piece of the coffee cup yesterday. Musta fallen out of the tree in all this rain.


Hope you kackled today.