My Dignity is Worth Exactly One Flesh Toned Bandage

So I had a really graceful moment this week.  Probably my most graceful moment of the year.  If I had to rank this on my scale of personal professionalism it would have to rank higher (as in less professional) than the time I cleaned my sunglasses with toddler underwear in front of my boss.  Here is what happened.  I take Connor to school early one morning a week because he has Legos class.  On this particular morning I also had an early meeting way across town that I absolutely could not be late to.  Usually on these mommy drop off mornings, I wait on the porch with him, watch him walk in and then sometimes stay to stare at the empty space he used to occupy for another minute or two. Every week there are lots of kids hanging out on the porch parentless, waiting to get in, but clearly their parents don't love them as much as I love my kid :) However, on this particular day I told Connor that I was going to have to drop him off on the porch with all the other kids and take off because I had a ways to go and absolutely could not be late to this meeting!  I was feeling pretty guilty about this because I'd never done it before, even though the doors open at 7:30 and we walked up at 7:27, I still felt bad. And even though he would be in the building before I even made it back to my car I still felt that working mommy guilt.  But nonetheless I felt that pressure of new job, big meeting so I powered through, kissed him goodbye and started heading back to my car.  I was parked on the street directly across from the porch and made it literally one step off the sidewalk and fell.  Hard.  It was not an "oops, I just stumbled, how embarrassing" kind of fall.  It was pretty major and more than a little embarrassing.  I should probably mention at this point what I was wearing.  Since it was our first day of cool weather in ages I busted out my cute tall boots and a knee length skirt. I thought I should clarify what length the skirt was, just in case you were picturing another kind of "professional."  This ensemble made the fall all the more awkward.

As I fell, I landed with my entire, considerable body weight on my right knee.  It drove into the broken asphalt like a jackhammer and then hurt so bad, I couldn't recover and just fell completely over. I know, super elegant. All this happened while a school bus waiting to turn into the parking lot, idled next to me, full of children with their face pressed against the windows.  That's called a real world education kids.  So I hoisted myself up using the handle of my car door and threw my body in the car to survey the damage.  It wasn't pretty.  After brushing off the pieces of gravel size asphalt I realized that I had pretty much removed all the skin from my knee cap.  It was bleeding profusely and being the always prepared mother I am, I had no Kleenex, wipes or napkins with which to staunch the bleeding.  All I had was a spare shirt of Connor's, left in the car because everyday that the Rangers have been in the world series, we have had to travel with his championship shirt so as soon as his butt hit the seat in the afternoon he could whip off his uniform shirt and throw on his Rangers gear.  Blood was running down my leg and into my cute boots so I did what any desperate person would do, I licked the shirt to get it wet and started to clean the blood off my leg, all while driving, because remember I could not be late to this training session.  It was not my proudest moment.  I made it to the meeting and felt like I had a pretty good handle on my injury.  Don't get me wrong it hurt like the devil and every time I lifted my foot off the gas, my key chain banged against my knee and I had to hold back tears.  But I had to rise above the pain and try to save any shred of dignity I had left, because lest we forget, I am a professional.  I hobbled in and asked a couple of friends in the elevator if they thought it looked okay, and by the horrified looks on their faces I realized it might not just be an overdramatization on my part.  It looked nasty. But whatever, I sat down and made a personal vow not to get up because I didn't want to draw any more attention to my humiliation which, again, hurt like nobody's business.  In talking with another friend, she got a grossed out look on her face and said, "Um, I think you need a napkin or something, blood is running down your leg."  Oh, fabulous!

On the car ride over, I called Matt to explain to him that the dark cloud of bad luck that seems to follow me everywhere had struck again.  He actually had the nerve to accuse me of exaggerating my injury.  That offended me so I stopped to take a picture with my phone and sent it to him.  His response, "Oh my lord. That is so embarrassing."  Thank You Honey!   After a while, someone was nice enough to find me a giant elbow bandage, probably because people were getting sick of looking at my wound every time I hit the snack table.  The bandage was a lovely flesh tone.  I'm not sure whose flesh tone this particular bandage was  modeled after but it wasn't a close match to my already pasty white winter skin, but since bleeders can't be choosers I stuck it on and made it through the day.

So alone, this might not have been blog worthy.  After all, I do stupid stuff every day but there's more.  I also have the added pressure of running a 5K with Connor tomorrow.  It's his first 5K and being the compassionate child he is, checked out my injury and said, "Mom, I am really worried that this is going to slow us down."  Um yeah, me too, that's definitely my biggest worry. I think I might be slowed to a gentle walk.  So since it hurts every time I extend my leg like, for example, when I take a step, I'm sure tomorrow's big run is going to be a really fun and enjoyable experience. But since my child has been looking forward to this for months, I am going to slap a smile (possibly a grimace) on my face and watch as he leaves me in the dust.