Falling for you.

I like making lists. Something about numbering or bullet points just makes me happy. So I wanna start doing a Friday Top 5. Maybe not every Friday, but...for now at least.



I was talking to my brother the other day and out of nowhere he asks "So have you had any good falls lately?" Maybe you don't know this about me, but I fall down a lot. Like...a lot. I tend to blame it on my fatness cause I can't see my feet when I walk really, or because fat lends it's way to gravity or something. Maybe I'm just clumsy...not sure really. Alls I know is that I fall down a great deal and it has led to a lifetime of jokes from my family.



My bro says that my problem is that I don't know "how" to fall. The way that most people catch themselves, or can jog their way out of a fall...yeah, I cant, and never do. Falling is like a grand event in my life and it always leaves me all beat up and embarrassed. I guess the irony of the situation is that if I see anyone else fall, I will fucking laugh about that shit for days and days, but clearly, I don't see the comedy in my own epic flailings.



Without further ado, I present to you my Top 5 Falls:



1. The Threesome: The movie Threesome came out when I was 16 years old. Being right in the prime of my hormonal teenage lets-talk-about-sex-babeee stage, I was all over it. I had planned for like weeks to go see it for my birthday with my sister-in-law. My mom, being a mom, was not too keen on the idea of me seeing a movie called Threesome, and basically was like "ehhh...no." But because I was turning 16 and I was LIKE SO TOTALLY AN ADULT LIKE OMG, I was like "eff that, we're goin." So I ditched school and off we went. Of course like any other time in my life that I try to do some sneaky shady shit, I have to do something stupid in order to get caught. This time...I fell. In my defense, movie theatres are dark and the floors are always slippery, so it's not that CRAZY that I could slip and fall. But the movie had just ended and I was trying to high-tail it outta there and I ended up doing like this crazy split turn move that ended me with me on that dirty buttery floor crying in pain. My SIL didn't see me fall and was already outside the theater waiting for me before she finally came back in to see me in a pathetic heap on the ground. I twisted my ankle something awful and thought for sure it was broken! So, like a wimp, I called my mom. Long story short: Worst.Birthday.Ever. Also, the movie sucked. Also I was grounded for a while. Also, screw you Stephen Baldwin. I'll never forgive you.



#2: The Screwdriver: This one's short and dirty. We were walking downtown to get to the Bayou City Art Festival one year. I was trying to run across this one street so I wouldn't get plowed down by a street cleaner truck that was inching its way towards the intersection. I trip over a pothole and fall in such a way that I was facing one direction when I started falling and through some whirlwind falling technique, I end up spinning like one and a half full turns before I hit the ground. Truck is still headed for my now immobile lump of a body in the middle of the steet. My brother comes over and is like "What the hell are you doing?? Unscrew yourself and let's go!" Thereby dubbed the Screwdriver...it forever haunts me.



#3: The 'That's What You Get': Being that I was the youngest and my brother was six years older than me, we had a typical "bully/annoying little sister" relationship. I hardly ever got the upper hand when it came to that little arrangement, but ONCE, one glorious day, I thought I did. My brother broke his bike trying to do a wheelie while being fat. So he was sitting on the curb with his friend while I was riding my bike back and forth in front of him saying obnoxious things like "man, it feels so good to have a bike!" and "wow, I sure do love HAVING A BIKE!" Fast forward about 40 seconds when my brother gets tired of my bullshit and chucks a big ass rock at my back tire as I ride by. In true Murphy's Law fashion, the rock gets stuck in the spoke and the tire stops dead in its track and the whole bike falls over to the side with my big ass still on it. I was riding around with no shoes on like the country bumpkin I was so the pedal squished my chubber toes underneath it. I broke 3 toes! I was like too fat to navigate with crutches so I had to use my dead granny's old Walker to get around the house for like the next 6 weeks. I refused to leave the house...it was all very dramatic. And the worst part was that I couldn't even tattle because as soon as I fell over, my brother ran over and was like IF YOU TELL MOM I'M GONNA KILL YOU WHEN YOU GO TO SLEEP! I still believe that threat to be very real.

#4: My Name is Mud: Growing up in Houston, bad weather is just a part of life. Flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, humidity...if it sucks, we get it. So like, a little flash flood, it ain't no thang, really. One day after a short flash flood, I was bored and hungry and tired of being in my house. I asked my dad if he'd take me to get some lunch and he's all "blah blah I ain't takin' muh truck out in these waters blah blah whatever." That's verbatim, by the way. So I was like "well, I'm gonna walk down to the taqueria on the corner, I'm hungry." He just shook his head and said "Go on, can't tell you nothin', do what you want!" So I was like "uhhh....ok." and left. So I get there and have a couple tacos and start to head back and I see that they have the sidewalk taped off because they're doing construction in our neighbor's yard. Being the badass rebel that I am, I scoff and step over the tape and continue on my way. Then WHOOMP (there it is) right into a freaking hole I go. I didn't know they had torn up the sidewalk during the construction and I couldn't see because of the standing floodwater. I'm trying to climb my way outta this damn mud pit and it feels like the harder I fight, the farther I go into the hole. It didn't help that I was wearing some cheap ass Old Navy plastic flipflops that were both firmly planted into the mud by now. I finally got out, but man, my legs were all covered in mud and my shoes were lost in the muddy abyss never to be seen again. Because I didn't wanna listen to my dad's I-told-you-so's, I walked over to the hose in front of our house and hosed off my sad mud-covered legs. Once I thought I was free of the evidence, I went in the house and there was my dad standing at the window fucking cracking up having watched the whole thing transpire. Being the gossipping old lady that he is, I basically had to hear everyone I know tell me my dad had told them all about my fall over the next few days. Argh.

#5: Never Can Say Goodbye: When I as nine years old, my uncle Barney died. My mom's family is from this little hick town in Texas called Belton. Because my uncle was a single dude still, they decided to bury him in the family plot in Belton. I had been to funerals before, for my gramma and my brother-in-law, but I had never been to a country ass funeral like this before. My other uncles had to dig the freaking hole! It was old-timey, to say the least. So maybe it's a Baptist thing, but whenever someone dies, they have that big spray of flowers that they put on top of the casket and after the services, people walk by and take a flower to keep or press or whatever. So being a young annoying kid, I was wayyy in the back of the flower-getting line. By the time I got up there, all that was left were a few weak ass carnations. So once everyone stopped paying attention, I decided to go around to the other side of the casket and get one of the remaining roses that were out of reach. Because my uncles are not professional gravediggers, the hole was all uneven and covered with like a green sheet. Stupid me, took one step too many and there goes my short little fat left leg right into the grave. Trying to teeter the delicate balance of not wanting to plunge all of 6 feet into the hole of uncertain death but also not wanting to call out for help and be made fun of for life, I did what any self-respecting brat would do. I hunkered down and waited for someone to come look for me. Unfornately that someone was my brother who then muttered the now infamous quote "Mom, Tricia's stuck in the gravehole." Enter chaos. I was pulled from impending doom, but now some two decades later, no funeral passes without at least a few comments of "Hey, try not to fall in this time." I have no doubt that when I die, my brother will stand over my coffin and lean over slightly to whisper over my corpse "it's okay to fall in this time, Trishy." Sentimental!

There you have it. This was long, I know, and if you made it this far, you are to be commended. Hopefully you had a few laughs and learned a little something along the way, mostly that my brother is a jerk.

If you have any funny fall stories, consider my comment section your sanctuary.