Comments of the Day: Some Good Falling Down Stories
Today we gave you some invaluable advice on what to do when you've fallen down. Really timeless stuff, people! As hoped, the comments became a forum for people to share embarrassing accounts of falling down. These are their stories.
I was at a concert years ago, I think at Roseland Ballroom, and you had to go down an long, wide flight of stairs to get to the restrooms. There were a lot of people on the stairs milling about, going up, going down, but I noticed that the railing down the middle was clear.
So I'm sliding down the railing in a seated position, at a nice, comfortable clip, when I reach one of those mid-flight stair landings. I'm not sure exactly how the geometry works, but somehow the railing gets to the lower part of the ceiling before the stairs do, and I smack my head, hard, into the ceiling and get thrown, hard, to my butt on the stairs.
People start to rush over to see if I'm OK. Trying to use the humor method, I pull the unlit cigarette that miraculously stayed lodged in my hand to my lips and ask, "Anyone got a light?"
Then I start to feel a trickle, quickly becoming a torrent, of sweat come down my forehead. "That's odd," I think. "I wasn't exerting myself, but maybe it's a nervous sweat."
So I dabbed my forehead with my hand and came back with a palmful of blood. Not good.
Epilogue: Wash my head in the bathroom sink for a while, return for the rest of the concert with a wad of paper towels pressed to the top of my scalp, go home, go to sleep. Bleed intermittently for weeks, perhaps months, when I shower. If I ever shave my head, or lose my hair, I think I'll find a helluva scar up there.
Last fall I tripped and fell on an acorn in the park. It was a warm October, and I had been running in shorts. The fall happened AFTER I was finished running and was doing my recovery walk, so yeah, I just tripped on an acorn while walking. And, since I was wearing shorts, I skinned both of my knees. Like a toddler. Then, the most handsome guy ever jogs up to me and offers to help, which is just the ultimate in humiliation. I couldn't even make eye contact, no less accept the help that I actually needed.
I was a mile from my house, bleeding, no money, no cell phone, and I managed to collect myself and begin hobbling home. Then—- I fell again. On another acorn. This time in front of two sweet old ladies who got to hear my torrent of obscenities.
It was a long, miserable walk home.
From MyOnlyProblemIsIAmOutOfVodka:
During last December's Snowmageddon, in a scene straight out of a movie, I slipped on a sidewalk and took a headfirst dive into a giant pile of slush (while wearing a white coat, natch). My iPod Touch flies out of my coat pocket, comes free of the headphones, flips end over end and finally lands with a thud into a puddle of slush... right in front of the tire of a Fresh Direct truck. I scrambled to pick it up, but as I was inches away, the truck starts up and pulls forward, right over my iPod, cracking the screen and filling it with slush, beyond repair.
The upside is, in a brief moment of clarity amidst my incredible embarrassment and shame, I thought to catch the license plate. I called Fresh Direct, told them what happened, they verified the truck had been in the area at the time I said it happened, and they replaced my iPod for me.
Now, I carefully lurch around in winter-like conditions as if I am an 80 year old woman, due to my constant fear that I am always about to bite it in a spectacularly humiliating way.
When I went to NYU, there was a moderately successful band whose lead singer was in a few of my classes. I was friendly with him and most of my friends weren't, but knew of the band and him through school. For some reason, it became a thing for my friends to talk about him like he was some 90's sitcom heartthrob and the band like they were the next Rolling Stones, so if my friends ever saw me talking to him they would get all gossipy and say stuff like "(blank) knows your name! He said hi to you!"
So, one night, I was going to see this band play a show and was feeling all cool thinking "I know the band." (I know, I'm a douche. At least I didn't actually say these words out loud.) Unfortunately, this was also in the midst of my "falling every time I drank any alcohol" phase, so when I was talking to the band outside after the show, acting all cool, I should have known it wouldn't end well. The slightly sloping sidewalk got the best of me, and I feel onto, well, all of the members of the band. They were very nice, didn't laugh that much and helped me up, but all too often my friends now ask me, "Remember that time you fell on (Band Name)?"
And just for fun, other places I have fallen:
-Over the back of a couch in front of at least 10 people
-Outside of a food cart, for no reason, from standing stationary
-In a bar where all of the seats were taken but there was no one standing to hide my fall from view as I was going to the bathroom
Now I really want to know what band it was.
Great stories, everyone! More please.