Par For The Course

Now that Mr. Bee is coming off the injured reserve list after spraining his ankle on New Year’s weekend, the Gods-of-Misadventure decided it was time to give me a try. I walked to the other building in the -17° temps this morning for a meeting. Walking back I hit a tiny patch of ice on the cement. My foot slid sideways until it hit the edge of the sidewalk where my ankle bent in a decidedly unnatural position and pitched me face first onto the ground. I enjoyed the best of all possible landing spots, some concrete, some frozen lawn and some shrubbery. Of course I had my two new kids with me so they got to witness what must have looked like their admin’s drunken, swan dive into the pucker brush on their first day with the department. When I do it, I do it up right. And there weren’t even any goats like in the horrific, Memorial Day extravaganza!

Despite the fact that I had on my long johns and 42 other layers of clothes against the cold, I still managed to take all of the skin off my right knee , which is now the size of a cantaloupe and sprain my left arm; the one that made a futile attempt to catch me and make the whole bad incident just go away. My left arm was clearly delusional…there was no stopping that train wreck.

Because I had witnesses, I had to fill out an electronic, company ‘incident report’ detailing the entire matter for those who couldn’t attend the actual event to enjoy. The report asked what caused the accident, but there wasn’t a checkbox for ‘stupidity so I checked ‘ice on sidewalk’. The Vice President of Horribly Embarrassing Situations was at my desk before my pointer finger had completely lifted from the ‘submit’ button. Guess what he wanted to know? How I was? No. If anything was broken? Did I need hot tea and sympathy? No. He wanted to know what color the concrete was on the part of the sidewalk where I slipped. (No, no, I’m fine, thanks for being concerned!)

Our company has an artsy-fartsy colored sidewalk installed out front a few years back with black and white concretes. The black has been notorious for being slicker than a smelt when it gets any kind of moisture on it…and ice? Fuggetaboutit! This coupled with the fact that the facilities department was told not to salt it the first year for fear of ‘ruining the finish’ has made for some nasty spills and all sorts of ill will. Despite the fact that it has been cleared and salted ever since then it still has a nasty reputation. Anytime anyone hears about a fall with in a 20 mile radius of the building , the first comment made was “I’ll bet it was on the black!”

I told him that despite the fact that I had seen the concrete EXTEMELY up close and personal-like, I had no idea what color it was. After all, I had been a little shaken up and hadn’t noticed, what with trying to regain some sort of dignity (didn’t happen) and trying to dig the packed snow, bits of grass and pieces of coniferous shrubbery out from up my nose, out of my left ear and behind my sunglasses. He seemed disappointed that I hadn’t been more observant. Maybe I’ll go back to the scene of the crime and check to make his day. Or he could go look himself; there’s a big Molly Bee-shaped hole in the junipers.

In other news, Mr. Bee is 99.9% sure he saw a coyote in our back yard on Saturday night. He had just let Wee Doggie out to read his pee-mail when it came between our house and the one next door. It kept going, but it makes you think…Wee Doggie would make a convenient tasty snack given half a chance. What with being completely deaf, mostly blind, very lame, and at least two crumpets short of a proper tea, he wouldn’t put up much of a fight. If I was a coyote, I would eat him on principle-even if I wasn’t hungry. He’s just too easy a target to pass up. So now on top of the other eight bajillion other silly things we have to do for our furbabies, we can add bodyguard to Wee Doggies list of demands. At -17°, we must really love that furball!