It Coulda Bin WAAAAy Worser.

In November 2004, I started my job at Arrow.

In February of 2005 (a mere 3 months later), I was eating lunch in the lunch room with everyone else on staff, when I heard my cellphone ring in my office down the hall. Knowing that no one in my family would call me in the middle of a work day unless it was an emergency, I hopped up off my chair to make a full-body dash down the hall.

Only, a rogue telephone cord was unknowingly wrapped around my ankle and I went from forward dash to THWAP flat on my face in 1/2 a second. I had been wearing a skirt.

I landed heavily on my knee (which took FOREVER to heal, and consequently made my European walk-about-tour in March 2005 with the grade 9's from Fundy, a painful experience), but more serious than that, was the injury to my pride. I wanted to quit my job and never face those co-workers again.

Fast forward to today.
In November of 2012 I started my new job at Focus.

Today, on February, just 3 months later, I was heading down to the reception area to pick up a parcel, using the somewhat grandish, marble and glass centre stairway:

I had just left my floor, (the second one) (the BEST one) and was thinking to myself  "this is the most exercise I get all day ... going back and forth to reception" and my other thought, (because I had just seen someone at our latte' machine), was that "shoes make the outfit". The gal who was making herself a hot beverage is a tiny thing, and was wearing skinny leg jeans, but somehow her shoes were wrong. Which I thought, as I got half-way down and stepped onto the landing, is a tragedy.

The sun was shining gloriously through those two-story-high windows, and maybe I was temporarily blinded?
Or maybe, I had another one of those weird fuzzy/ dizzy moments I've been having since Christmas?
Or maybe my legs were just tired of carrying all my bulk?

Whatever the cause, I remember being on the landing, and then I remember seeing my legs in the air as I tumbled down those stairs in a feet-over-shoulders somersault.  My first thought when I saw my feet in the air was, "Who am I to talk? These sensible shoes don't look good with pants, either."

My next thought was, "I have to stop moving." So I tried to grab the railway, but the forward motion was too strong, and I rotated again.

My next thought was, "I have to quit my job. NO WAY am I coming out of this intact."

And then I thought, "HOW THE HELL CAN I STOP THIS FORWARD MOTION?"

After I was landed on the bottom, bent in half, I hopped up like I was spring-loaded and like I wasn't aching and hurting all over.

It was a complete and utter miracle, (thank you God) that no one was in the board room. They would have had front row seats of the world's least graceful descent down a flight of stairs. In fact, in a building with 75 people in it, plus visitors always in the gift shop, only ONE person saw me. And she sat at her reception desk in silent awe.

It was likely she'd never seen anything like that in this building before.

It's not everyday you see a 52 year old flip-flop, bounce and roll down a flight of stairs in the Focus on the Family building.