Graceful as a bowling ball in a stairwell

I can’t type very well right now.  You see, I apparently do not have the coordination to exist as a proper member of society.

Rewind to Monday afternoon.

I’m sitting at my desk.  Three of my co-workers are at lunch.  One has just returned.  I haven’t left yet.

My co-worker who was present was tearing through our storage cabinates looking for canned air.  I said, “I have some.”  I opened the bottom drawer to my file cabinet and took the can out.  I pushed the drawer shut… and didn’t notice when it caught on the top of my left shoe.

I stood up and tried to take a step… catching my right foot on my left foot which was firmly securred under the very open file cabinet drawer.

With momentum generated by pure stupidity, my feet attempted to catch up to my body, but their fate was sealed… as was mine.  With no other options, my body rushed towards the cubical wall in front of me.

I frantically reached up with my left hand and caught the top of the cubical wall just before I slammed into the wall face-first.

The cubical wall held for a scant second and then the floor braces gave way and the entire contraption groaned and headed towards the floor.

With my feet still firmly pinned, I could no longer move forward… only down.  My arm strained to hold on to the wall, but my grip finally gave way as the wall, reinforced by my body weight, rushed towards the floor.

My cubical neighbor has a white board hanging from the wall.  The hooks reach over the top of the wall and stretch down my side.  As my hand fell away from the top of the wall, my left ring finger and my left “salute to all the bad drivers out there” finger got caught under the braces and, quite disgustingly, dislocated in a very strange direction.

As I lay in a crumpled and moaning heap, knees slightly hyperextended as the drawer never did give way, bleeding heavily from two shattered fingers and trickling blood from a small abrasion on my forehead, my co-worker calmly walks over, takes the canned air from my right hand, quietly says, “Thanks,” and walks away.

He managed to make it almost a foot and a half before he broke down into hysterical laughing.

The aftermath is some mildly strained tendons in my left elbow and shoulder, some colorful bruising all up my left arm and down the left side of my back, and two VERY swollen and severely bruised fingers on my left hand that don’t want to move at all right now.

My co-worker said this morning after gleefully retelling the story to the rest of my co-workers for the 10th time, “That is still the most graceful thing I have ever seen.” to which I replied, “Hell, that was nothing.  You should see me dance.”