My Unfortunate Consequence

I like to drink. I have always quite enjoyed it. It all started with sneaking a wine cooler from my friend's parents overstocked refrigerator. I remember trying to choke it down as if it were pure isopropyl alcohol with berry flavoring. I even went through a phase in my teenage years where it was the only way I could enjoy myself. When I was about fifteen I found a very bubbly outgoing friend who was about eighteen and had tits that were abnormally large on her small frame. She changed my life dramatically. As you can imagine she had little trouble finding an older man that was always eager to jump in his run down car and run to the liquor store on our behalf. This became our pastime. As you could probably imagine some of the best, and worst times of my life were during this phase. We will come back to this in a moment.

For most of my life I have also managed to be very accident prone. As a small child we had an "Urgent Care" center down the street from my house with two files on me so thick you would think they were bringing two levels of The Encyclopedia Britannica into the room every time I paid them a visit. My accidents did tend to be minor in most cases. At the time I had never broken a bone. I just managed to do stupid things that would warrant an emergency visit. Usually small sprains or large cuts and concussions and the like. I was very active when I was younger, so things like this tend to happen to active children. When you take an accident prone indivdual and give them alcohol....it should be clear to see that hilarity will surely ensue.

When I was about 16 I went out with my bubbly friend to one of the "clubs" around town that would allow young minors to attend because they didn't serve any alcohol. It was generally common for us to drink in the parking lot before entering. So, we got really loaded and when we left we drank even more and then proceeded to the diner...which was the drill for anyone that attended said establishment. Between two lightweight teenagers we made short work of a bottle of vodka. Not just any Vodka, the stuff they would keep BELOW the bottom shelf if they could....you should have to dig a hole and bottle it yourself it is so toxic. I was running around in front of the diner with a friend of mine when I twisted my ankle. Not just a little bit....a lot. I remember not really knowing what was happening. It was as if suddenly the world tilted sideways and I was laid out on the grass with people standing over me asking if I was alright. The following morning assessment of the damage would show that I had sprained my ankle so badly I had bruises running up either side of my leg, my entire foot was purple and my ankle was roughly the size of a grapefruit. I couldn't walk right for about two months.

I didn't have another unfortunate drinking accident until I was much older. The next instance occurs when I am about 22 or 23. My (at the time) boyfriend and a friend of mine went over to a friends house he was renting out with a bunch of his friends. They were having a rager. One of those parties where there are people laying on the lawn puking their guts out, sleeping in the bathroom on the toilet seat, and fighting on the front porch. The entire living room/kitchen area was hardwood floor, which apparently gets slippery when wet. In the kitchen there were shots going around, drinks being mixed and spilled. The entire floor was a giant puddle. We were all splashing around in it and tracking it into other rooms of the house. Looking back now someone was bound for an accident. Someone, meaning me.

When the evening started coming to a close I went to walk down the stairs....which were also hardwood. I was wearing these silver platforms with absolutely no traction on the bottom of them when I suddenly had a small confrontation with gravity. In any fight with gravity, it will always win. One leg went down the stairs and the other....didn't really. It is all really fuzzy after that. I remember feeling really hurt, but nothing serious. I actually walked myself out to the car and everything.

I woke up the next morning and tried to roll over in bed and couldn't. Every time I would make the slightest movement pain would shoot down my legs and up my back. I couldn't imagine what was wrong. Luckily the Dr. knew the moment he saw me doing the walk of shame down the long hallway to the exam room. I had broken my tailbone....the only bone I have ever broken in my entire life. I couldn't stand up from my chair, sit down or do really anything without an immense amount of pain for months. Total nightmare. If you are going to break something, don't let it be your tailbone.

I managed to go a couple years without incident, until about a month ago. I had a bunch of friends over to my house and we were playing beer pong, eating pizza and so on. This doesn't really have much pre-story to it because I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. I was simply walking through my kitchen when I slipped on a cheese wrapper that had apparently missed the garbage can. I fell on my ass, smacked my head on the refrigerator and felt a huge pop when I fell. I immediately started screaming bloody murder because at first I thought I broke my leg. Everyone in my house was concerned at first but when they saw that my leg was obviously not protruding bones or flopping lifelessly they assumed I must be fine. They thought I was just being drunk and ridiculous. The people at the Emergency Room at 6:00 AM felt the same way. They sent me home diagnosing it as a knee sprain. After a few hundred dollars and and MRI later, I have torn some very important ligaments in my knee that will need surgery for repair.

That really sums it up at this point. The funniest thing is that all of these injuries could have just as easily happened when I was sober, but manage to only plague me in my drunken state. Why is that? Is the the horror movie mentality that if you are doing something wrong you are in for some karma? Not sure. I guess I will have to be extra careful when navigating around my own kitchen. Moral of the story: don't drink and walk.

My Status Update

I am a child of the technology age, and have embraced it fully, if not whole-heartedly. I have a MySpace page, a Facebook page, play a couple fun online games and of course have an email account. It has occurred to me that without an online existence you actually cease to exist, especially in my current "house mom" situation. I don't have a job, and have two kids so getting out to special events or even to enjoy a single frosty mug of beer has become more than a chore. The only way that I can really keep in touch with the outside world is through my social networking sites, and although I like having some "friends" that I don't talk to often, or old friends I have fallen out of touch with over the years at my fingertips it sometimes seems to me that people are abusing the privilege of having me at their fingertips.

I would like to introduce a new saying for the type of issue I am currently explaining. It is more of a small edit to one that is more than well known. I propose a change from-

If you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all

to

If you have NOTHING to say, then don't say anything at all.

I read the funniest comic strip the other day in reference to what I am talking about. Due to the fact that I don't have the option to paste it into my blog I am going to quote it

"Where have you been? No email, you didn't text me. Not a clue on your blog, you didn't update your status on Facebook. It is like you fell off the earth!"

"Did you not check Twitter?"

"Oops, sorry 'Upstairs, going to the bathroom, be back in five'."

The side ache I got while laughing at this comic strip would possibly have caused me to drown if I had been swimming. Now, I am willing to admit that I am occasionally guilty of the no update update but it should be the exception rather than the rule. When I have 100 people updating information that I need to scroll through (not to mention every app update, which I actually don't mind) I don't need to know that you sneezed. Call me crazy, but it isn't life altering information for me. The even funnier thing is that you will find twenty comments following this update saying, "bless you."

So, in the spirit of fun let's take a look at some of the updates currently taking up space on my news feed. Names, of course removed to protect the guilty.

"I wanna snuggle."

"Please please please don't let what I am thinking happen." - small comment on this is that I hate half a story. I am not a goddamn mind reader and I am certainly not going to break out the crystal ball.

"Wish that Cyber Monday came on payday"

"I'm hungry" -Stop the presses! Someone is hungry, alert the media.

"Totoro and ice cream"

"I need to poo"

Okay, so I actually made that last one up, but it wasn't any different than anything that preceded it. I am actually not going to go any further down the feed or I will never find my pillow, but this is why I prefer the layout of MySpace to Facebook. I can see one status update, or click to see more if I choose. I don't have to sort my way through everyone's stream of consciousness looking for things I would actually care to know about someone. Update and let people know how you're doing, or chit chat about your shows, share something funny or crappy that happened today...or awesome quotes...everyone loves a good quote. I guess a good rule of thumb is, if what you are saying could not be followed with some sort of conversation, don't say it.