Twice in a month I have fallen in the driveway: once on black ice and once over a piece of rebar in the wood chips that I have to cut through because the landlord put up a fence across my stairs … in case someone should fall. First time I fell, I smacked my left hip (and knee and wrist because, despite years of judo training, I put my arm out to stop my fall) and then I smacked my right hip black and blue (but remembered my judo training and did not put my arm out to break my fall).
The second fall I seriously thought I busted my hip. I have a bruise the size of a pineapple and the color of a thunderstorm. Make no mistake – that bad boy hurts like a mother-freaker. I can’t sleep on it, cannot touch it, and the seat belt lock sits right on it. However, I still have full range of motion and can support my own flabbiness, so it must just be a deep tissue injury.
It annoys me that at my age, and I consider myself relatively young, I am falling on my hips. Seriously. I suppose it beats a head injury, but really – two hips in a month. I only have two hips, so I had better get this under control.
The first time I fell, I laughed pretty hard. The second time, I didn’t laugh so hard. I felt like that old lady on the commercial: “Help! I’ve fallen . . . and I can’t get up!” My youngest son had to lend my two hands and a hefty tug to lift my fat arse off the tar.
Currently I live on a busy street right in the center of town. If I fall again in the driveway, eventually someone will come by and find me. But, I’m moving soon, and my new apartment will face the woods. If I need to call for help, I might be lucky and get a squirrel or a chipmunk or a skunk or maybe a blue jay or, appropriately enough, a mourning dove.
I will be kind of near the highway, though, so if you’re driving north on route 93 and you hear the faint cry of, “I can’t get up,” it’s not Ralphie’s brother Randy. It will be the voice of an old lady with no hips left to bust.
