My life

Lurching from one disaster to another...just a suburban princess trying to get by!



Friday 2 September 2011

Disaster…

A friend of mine recently shared a couple of her own recent disasters on Facebook inspiring this list of my own top 10 disasters.  Here’s to you V!

There have been many occasions in my adult life when my bad luck, bad decisions  or general clumsiness and inability to stay on my own two feet – especially when sober – have caused disaster.  Drunk I am light on my feet and generally disaster free… maybe I should drink more often!

  • At 18, on one of the few occasions that year I was not three sheets to the wind, I slipped over, smashed my face into a wall and damaged one of my front teeth (it was repaired but alas some years later I lost it anyway).
  • I once fell up our back stairs whilst carrying laundry, landing on my left forearm; I didn’t break it but bruised the bone and suffered pain, weakness and numbness for weeks afterwards.  This is by no means the only time I have fallen UP stairs, just the worst.
  • One New Years Eve (in the 80’s) I decided to wear a white lycra mini dress to a function…with BIG hair and red stilettos.  Disaster enough I hear you say, but no it was worse than that.  I had decided to team it with some lovely lacy underthings, problem was it was all ABSOLUTELY SEE-THROUGH…a fact that was lost on me until roughly half-way through the evening….
  • There was the time at MrQ’s work Xmas party where, after ½ a glass of bubbly I turned my ankle and fell flat on my face in front of his entire office, I didn’t break the glass, in fact managed to keep a hold of it, but wore the contents across my face leading to evidence of unwise, non- waterproof mascara choices.  This fall led to crutches and a limp for weeks.
  • The “laundry incident” earlier this year where I dislocated my right shoulder thus rendering myself unable to write, type or drive for weeks – these being the main activities of my occupation this was a problem. I could still talk though so all was not lost!
  • Many years ago, whilst learning to drive when I snapped the indicator stalk off the steering column of the car, we were a couple of hundred km’s from home and I was not popular.
  • Once when unpacking the dishwasher I unwisely pulled out both the top and bottom racks, leading to the machine tilting just enough for the bottom rack to shoot out across the kitchen, depositing 6 dinner plates, 2 bowls and an oven dish onto the tiled floor underneath the stove. There were no survivors.

And for a bonus “near disaster”:
  • Earlier this year whilst carrying a cheesecake  I “fell off” my wedges and performed one of those slow motion ” incidents” where you take a step to avoid a fall, have to repeat it to stop falling in the other direction and so on and end up running into something hard. Or is that just me? Anyway it caused me to cannon into my husband, who was carrying a carton of beer (all the food groups covered here), forcing him into a parked car.  Neither of us was hurt and his quick action saved both the beer and cheesecake…disaster averted.


So there you have it, my Top 10, can you beat it?


Disclaimer: This is by no means an exhaustive list as I am constantly adding to it. Also, regular followers will recognise some of these disasters from previous posts but they are up there in the top 10. 

6 comments:

  1. This post made me laugh! It's always good to know that other people are capable of ridiculous incidents when completely sober. My friend and I are both known for being a touch on the clumsy side :)

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  3. I don't know if I can beat it, but I can tell you about some of mine (apparently, there’s a limit, so it will be 2 comments, now, darnnnnn youuuuuu Blogger!!!!)

    1) On the way to turn one of my papers in, where the class was on the 4th floor (each floor 2 flights of stairs a piece) I *stupidly* decided that the stairs would be much quicker, and I was in a hurry. I got to the second floor ok. Third flight of stairs, I tripped about halfway up, and everything flew out of my hands, slamming my right shin and left knee into the stairs. Nevertheless, I continued. Running. Flight 4 (the next flight), repeat flight 3. Right shin, left knee, again. Elevator next to me on the 3rd floor, but I persist, only one floor to go. Flight 5, toward the 4rd floor, I continue. Halfway up, I trip up the stairs again, right shin, left knee. Finally I gave up and slid down the stairs, my glory defeated, and took the elevator from the third to fourth floor. I was on crutches for a month.

    2) Same class, same building, 3 months later, I was leaving class, walking out to my car after the final. I waited for the crossing light to say walk. I dropped something, turned around to pick it up, then saw the light start to flash meaning I shouldn't start to cross, so I took off running, hoping to make it anyway. I fell flat on my face off the curb. Into the middle of a busy street, where cars were about to start crossing. Smooooth. Crutches, again.

    3) I was babysitting at a cousin's house, and I had never been in their house before. They were showing me around. They showed me up the front stairs, and then they took me back the down stairs to show me the back of the house. I was alright....until the last stair. Then I fell on my face. My cousins (ranging in age from 2-7, three of them) witnessed this. I went home. Crutches. AGAIN.

    4) I decided to start becoming more physically fit. I had just bought a basketball, and started playing at the hoop which has been in our driveway for years. First shot, it bounced off the rim and into the street. I start running after it. I start running after it...and at the end of the driveway, where the slope changes from "driveway" to "street" I fall flat on my face. I still have a scar on my chin. One on my knee too.

    5) I was *walking* from class to my car. I stopped to make sure somebody wasn't going to flatten me, because campus drivers are awful. I stepped off the curb. I got across. When I stepped onto the other curb, I fell, my bag on top of me. When I tried to stand up, I did one of those 360 trying to catch my balance things....and fell again. Someone asked if I had been drinking. Another asked if I needed help to my car. A few asked if I was okay.

    6) I was in class the first time, after being in the hospital the first 2 classes. I lost my balance and fell out of my chair. I don't know if it was the embarrassment that made me do it, but I laughed. The next day, I received a stern e-mail from the professor threatening to kick me out of class....I had sprained my wrist. I was medicated. I had been in the hospital. And now I was about to get kicked out of a class because I fell out of my chair.

    7) This one is not funny, but rather serious. One of my medications caused me to have a seizure at work (in public, I might add). The workspace I had left me stuck in between the register and the hangers, and nobody could get me out. The paramedics were called. I was ordered to take time off work. I also had my license suspended until I could see a neurologist (who cleared me), and immediately ordered to stop taking that medication.

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  4. Part deuce (because 4,000 characters just wasn't enough to chronicle my clumsiness):


    8) When I was in high school marching band, I was spinning my flag, and because our marching field was being renovated, we were in a parking lot. The lot had signs that could be removed for marching purposes, but had not been removed that day. I ran into the one that was in my spot.

    9) Another time in marching band, I hit a trumpet. I don't think they ever figured out who it was that did it. I hope they never read this.

    10) At a football game performance, it was windy, and my flag flew into the girl in front of me, conking her on the head and nearly knocking her out. She was ok. No concussion, thankfully. After that they started evaluating tosses before performances based on how windy it was.

    11) At work, I often was assigned to the baby food aisle because nobody else seemed to know how to put things in straight lines. Of course, I often went home smelling like strawberry banana, or squash, pears, peas, green beans, ham, roast, or some other blended food in a jar. I loved the blue stuff they spread on messes to clean them up, that absorby stuff....

    12) I once broke the last snowglobe on the shelf during the Christmas season, leaving a lady very upset with me and driving to the next closest store, 20 miles out, to make her daughter, who had never seen snow, happy. Oops...oh yea, and the liquid inside the snowglobe? I was lucky enough to catch it all in the bag I was putting the snowglobe in when I dropped it.

    13) I think I'm going to stop. Point is, I'm a very clumsy person....this is by no means an exhaustive list, just a few examples...........

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  5. WOW Ashley...maybe there is someone in this world clumsier than me! ;) xxx

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  6. lol, I'm just a bit clumsy! My parents ask that I don't run anywhere and that anywhere I do go, I walk carefully. I am not very happy with this request...

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