Can You Lend Me A Hand ... Or A Couple of Legs?

As if I didn't have enough trouble walking on two legs, I've sprouted a couple of extra ones. I sprained my ankle, and now I'm on crutches for the next ten days.

I'll wait a moment for your murmurs of sympathy.

Okay, done yet? Because I don't need sympathy about my sprain. It's stupid and I'm so mad at my ankle that I'm not talking to it right now. Not that I randomly talk to my body parts, but you know what I mean. And if you don't, than you probably shouldn't even be reading my blog.

Cranky much?

As soon as people see me hobbling along they gasp, "What happened?!" Original comment, dontcha think? I'll bet you asked that (in your head, if not out loud) as soon as you read that I was on crutches. I know people are being sympathetic, and deep down in my heart--way deep down--I appreciate it.

My problem is, I don't have a great story to tell what happened. It's a stupid story. And not stupid in an I-went-parasailing-and-landed-wrong kind of way. That's a stupid story that still inspires people with my adventurous spirit. Unfortunately, my story has no adventure. It's not even a stupid story where people laugh and say they can't believe I did that. It's stupid in a way where, when I explain what happened, people stare for a minute, like they're waiting for the good part. Then when they realize that's it, they just, kind of blink and say oh.

So after a lead-in like that (and trust me, the lead-in was more interesting than the story itself), here's what happened:

The week before last, Terry and I went away for a few days to celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary. We've actually been married for twenty-six years, but last year we were traveling to our son's wedding a week after our anniversary so we didn't really have the chance to celebrate. We're getting even, though. We told him that on his twenty-fifth anniversary, he'll be busy planning the party for our fiftieth.

At any rate, we went to the Gulf for five days and played in the water, walked on the beach, shopped, slept and ate seafood five days in a row. Well, Terry ate seafood. I was a little fished out and I started ordering hamburgers toward the end of our vacation. We even went for a late night swim and then walked along the deserted beach in the moonlight. It was absolutely wonderful until the last night when I sprained my ankle.

None of the above activities caused me to hurt myself. Oh no. I'm unique. On our last night, I sat curled up in a chair, reading, until my leg went to sleep. Then when I tried to stand up, my ankle gave out.

Here's where you say oh.

Yep. That's really it. I basically sprained my ankle while reading. See? Even people who live very sedentary lifestyles can injure themselves. If they're clumsy enough.

Clumsy doesn't end with being on crutches, though. I've never had to use them before. They always looked fairly simple, but they're killing me. My shoulders and arms ache unbelievably from supporting most of my weight. (Note to self: get back on your diet!) My right leg aches because it's doing all the work, and my left leg feels guilty for not doing it's fair share. Plus, everytime I move the crutches forward, somehow I don't seem to make them land an even distance from me. One is always in front of the other. One afternoon as I crutched through a parking lot, my shirt caught on the crutches and hiked higher with every step, exposing my bare belly to the whole world. No one wanted to see that.

I carry a big purse, and it throws me more off balance than usual when I'm trying to crutch. So I ended up hanging it around my neck when I went into work today. I felt like a St. Bernard. And now I'm wondering ...

If I stood on a street corner leaning on my crutches with my purse around my neck, would people start throwing change into it?