Guns May Not Kill People, but Scissors and Sidewalks are Out of Control

I pretty much have the same two main goals every day: don’t embarrass myself, and try to keep breathing.

You might think that, since I’m not suffering from a fatal illness (that I know of – but I still have thousands of internet diagnoses to comb through), that the latter one would not be that hard.

But I have three strikes against me – my depression, my forgetfulness,  and my clumsiness.

I usually get up every morning, and my first thought is, “On a scale of 1-10, how much do I NOT want to be alive today?”  If it’s over a 5 for more than a couple of days, I call the doctor.  Usually, though,it hovers around a 3, in which case I resolve to make a concentrated effort for the next 24 hours not to kill myself.  On “Three” Days, it’s easy to avoid killing myself on purpose,  but an accidental death is always a distinct possibility.

Last week, for example, I was walking out the back door of our school one morning, on my way to my portable classroom.  For absolutely no reason at all, other than a little mist in the air, I suddenly skied down the handicap ramp, did about a 5 minute dance that included a twirl and the splits, and fell.  (It was truly a John- Travolta-Stayin’ Alive-Performance.) Hard.  On my knee.

All in all, the experience was somewhat of a success.  As you can tell, I did not kill myself.  I didn’t even break any bones or, more importantly, the iPad that was in my purse.  In addition, it was so early in the morning that only one person witnessed this amazing feat – and she was a substitute.  (Notice that I am not including the school security cameras as a witness because I am holding out the hope that people have better things to do than to watch them every minute.)

For the next 4 days, I wore pants so my husband would not see my gravel-encrusted knee.  He already knows I’m a klutz, but I keep thinking if he goes more than a couple of months without being directly reminded of this, he might replace my “Klutz” label with that of “Stunningly Efficient Wife.”

No matter.  On the 4th day following my stunning performance, my husband was holding our golden retriever while I was kneeling (on my traitorous left knee) behind her, trying not to cry out in pain.  My intention was to cut off a particularly nasty mat of hair conveniently located on her rear end.  As I pushed the tip of the scissors through the mat, trying to find the other side so I would not slice off her skin, I managed to plunge the blade deep into one of my fingers.

Bloody, but not exactly deadly.  Yay me.  I missed stabbing myself in the jugular.

Since I’d already reverted to the “O Days Without an Incident” billboard in my husband’s eyes, I went ahead and confessed to my knee injury while I was at it.

It’s going to be pretty ironic if I conquer this whole depression thing, and I end up killing myself anyway…

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