After you, Miss Grace

Have I ever mentioned that the Lord forgot to give me gracefulness? I mean, for some reason I can stand at the top of a ladder and be fine, but I can't walk across the floor without bruising myself. Oh, do let me share some highlights. Well, and I'll share with you some stories of just bad luck, too. How's that sound?

In the presence of critters:
- I slid off the side of a horse that my cousin and I were trying to ride bare back. When I slid off, I smacked my head on a rusty hay trailer and earned 8 lovely stitches across the back of my head.
- My neighbor's Great Dane bit me twice while we were attending the Little League parade. It bit me once in the chest (thank goodness for the coat I had on) and in the hand. Though the hand wasn't stitchable, it did require medical attention. Because of that, I was required (by law, I was told) to file a police report. Since it had been the second time that someone had been bit by the dog (and they required medical attention like me), unfortunately the dog needed to be destroyed. At least it bit me and not one of the children that had been climbing all over it a half hour before.
- The same neighbor's Doberman bit me in the thigh when I went to drop something off at their house.
- The same neighbor's goat decided to ram me in the back of the knee while I was getting things out of my car.
- The same neighbors had a rooster that chased everyone and tried to peck us to death.
(Don't worry. After the Great Dane incident, they put the house up for sale and moved.)
- A German Shepherd on-the-loose bit me when I was a kid. I didn't tell mom, but I was afraid that I was going to die of rabies, so I didn't sleep all night long.

In the studio:
- I was helping someone make a piece in glassblowing, they flashed the piece into the glory hole farther than they usually would, failed to tell me and when I grabbed the pipe (middle and back are standard, unless told otherwise by your partner), my skin sizzled and I let loose of the middle of the pipe. (A glory hole is 2200 degrees F.) My partner yelled, as she had worked on the piece for an hour and didn't want to lose it, I grabbed the pipe and proceeded to help her until she was done. I didn't know that the prof was watching. She insisted that I get medical help and initially I declined. The intense pain encouraged me to change my decision and in the end, I was wrapped in a burn mitt that needed to be changed at the Student Health Center everyday for a week. Don't worry. My hand healed beautifully. You can't really tell.
- I had come back from a week-long buyer's trip at the Philadelphia Buyer's Market and Baltimore ACC show, got back earlier than I thought and went ahead and went to my stained glass class. I was tired, snapped glass up and into my thumb, rather than down and away from me. I ended up cutting half way through a tendon in my thumb, had to have it repaired and had hitch-hiker thumb (either in a soft cast or a splint) for two months.

While attempting to be a good "sport:"
- The first time I skied, I hit a patch of ice, flew through the air and when I landed, I did so on top of my ski. The binder clip things jammed into the back of my leg, leaving a fantastically huge bruise.
- The second time I skied (both at Peek N Peak in New York), I hit an unpacked section of snow towards the end of Friar Tuck, over-corrected and ended up skiing down the hill backwards with my skis crossed. I leaned completely over, my knee let loose, then the binding let loose. I blew my ACL and broke the side of my knee.
- I got a fish hook jammed into my foot.
- I got smacked in the back really hard with a fishing pole that a friend was fishing with. He thought he cleared me and by the feel of the pole, he was trying to cast to the other side of Lake Erie. It literally hurt for a month.
- I walked in front of my sister while she was swinging and ended up with two big black eyes.
- I threw a baton up in the air, missed catching it with my hands and ended up catching it right between the eyes instead. I think I broke my nose.
- I swam right into the swimming pool ladder. Again, I think I broke my nose.
- My cousin and I were riding a three wheeler while we were at the annual 4th of July party, she told me to put my legs out and just as I did, my foot caught up in a bush, yanked me off and she ran over me. I was fine, though. A little bruised, but I was fine.

While just trying to function normally:
- I broke a toe when I jumped over a laundry basket.
- I was wearing my first pair of heels, lost control while going down the church sidewalk, wiped out flowers, killed a pair of hose and botched up my knee.
- I broke a toe while climbing the step stool to put my "major award" up that I won from the Foster Parent dinner.
- I locked my right middle finger into my car door. I had to dig into my right pocket with my left hand and unlock the door so that I could get my hand back out.
- Two weeks later, I slammed the same finger into the garbage chute of our apartment building. I went to the Student Health Center (I had catastrophic university insurance at the time) and though I didn't break the finger, the doctor informed me that I was "going to lose that nail." Um, you think?
- I ripped a muscle in my thumb while trying to put K- into her carseat.
- A month before Hubs and I were to be married, I fell on black ice at the university and broke my left thumb. Well, I know that I broke it even though I didn't have it x-rayed. I wouldn't have it checked because I was certain that they would put me in a cast and my wedding dress wouldn't fit with a cast on.
- While trying to iron clothes on the mini ironing board we had at our first apartment, I burned my knee. I burned it really bad. It's still scarred.
- I was on the house phone during a thunderstorm when the line was struck by lightning. It threw me across the room and into the stove. I will never talk on a corded phone during a storm ever again.

While attempting to roll down the road:
- My vehicle was rear ended on my 21st birthday. It was totaled. I had a fantastic case of whip lash.
- My old RAV was rear ended and totaled. I ended up with whip lash to my shoulder, much preferred to the whip lash of the neck.
- I was distracted by a rather lovely looking gentleman and lightly rear ended an older gentleman. (I was in college and not dating Hubs.) I didn't get a ticket.

Hubs is thankful that we have a ranch home. He insists that I will be in a mobility scooter by the time I'm 50.

Edited to add:
While trying to be handy:
- While painting the house, the ladder shifted, the foot of the ladder caught into some weird hole, it went down with me on it. Funny thing was that I was on a "ladder buddy" so that I could stand on the ladder backwards. When I was going down, I knew it and figured that my behind would be the safest surface for me to fall on. In the end, I smacked my head against the house and left a skid mark all the way down with my head. I fell hard on a huge rock that we had holding down cardboard to protect the foundation from paint. I had an enormous bruise on my upper left cheek, a ladder buddy scrape all the way up my back, my arm was bruised, my head was bruised, but I wasn't broken. A half hour later, sore, I got up and kept going.
- While trying to help hubs with the soffits, he lost control of a chunk of channel and it came down and smacked me in the face. Instant bruise. I was done helping, too.