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The most inflexible person on the planet
"The pride goeth DURING a fall!" - This is what my friend
Kathy told me when I confessed that we couldn't utilize her fantastic
birthday gift of a spa pedicure for the next week or so- because I
had mutilated the last three toes on my foot showing off to my two
oldest sons. I had just returned from Pilates class, and was telling the
boys how I used to be very stiff and unlimber, but just look, now I can
sit on the floor and grab my feet easily. My oldest son sat on the floor
looked down at his feet and said, "Can I bend my knees? I am
horribly inflexible!" My middle son sat down and grabbed his feet
with the ease of a lifetime gymnast.
"I tell ya I am the MOST INFLEXIBLE HUMAN ON THE
PLANET!" My oldest wailed, and even though is legs are, like, five
feet long, he demonstrated his lack of fluid movement by trying to place
one of his feet on the kitchen counter. Nothing doing. So here's where I
really got STOOPID. First, I began by lecturing him about how he
should do Pilates because I used to be just as stiff and unlimber as he,
but now, look at me now kids! Wheeeeeeeee!!!!!! It was at this point,
that I decided to demonstrate my new so-called agility by
kicking one of my feet up onto the kitchen counter. Only guess what? I
cracked all my toes on my right foot UNDER the counter ledge instead
of on TOP of it. There was a sickening crack, and then
spine-tingling pain, and pools of blood dripping from my feet.
And how did my boys, those beacons of compassion react to the sight of
their mother, in attempt to show off new found agility, bleeding and
mauled on the kitchen floor? They laughed! They laughed their butts off!
What a tribute to my parenting, I thought, as I screamed at them,
"WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING!? I THINK I BROKE MY TOE!" This set them
off on a new peal of laughter.
"GO TO BED!" I bellowed, and suddenly the
laughter stopped.
"Are you really hurt, Mom?" My
fourteen year old inquired, barely holding back the chortles.
"What do you mean, 'go to bed?'" My sixteen year
old huffed, "I am SIXTEEN! You NEVER tell me when to go to
bed!"
"I can't BELIEVE you boys
would LAUGH AT ME!" I yelled. "I THINK MY TOE IS BROKEN!"
And then the really sad, desperately awful part of the whole ridiculous
experiment in fluid movement hit me: I wouldn't be able to get my spa
pedicure the next day with Kathy! And it was my birthday gift: I had
been looking forward to the pampering all week! But it was true, not
only would the merest stroke of a nail polish brush hurt me beyond
imagination, but the bloody mangled toe next to my little toe would
require a band-aid, at the very least, for a few more days. Sometimes, I
sighed, life was really a big ole stinker, and not only would my
toes not be gorgeous; they would be ridiculously bruised, bloody and
band-aided.
Still, after the boys had shamefully slunk off to their rooms
(their father had banished them in punishment for mocking their mama), I
couldn't help but to kick that foot up on the counter. It sailed up
there with ease, I tell you, and when I was looking what I was doing, I
didn't even physically damage any part of my human anatomy.
When I relayed this whole dismal tale to Kathy, she recalled that
she had once suffered a similar fate when she was showing some friends
how high she could kick and her one leg on the floor slipped out from
under her, causing a massive blow to her tailbone when she landed in a
humiliated pile on the floor. "The pride goeth DURING a fall!"
She summed it up, and surmised that perhaps we should both be just a tad
more careful in the future before we started talking the smack about
what great kicking power/agility/flexibility we have.
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