Falling down Friday

No, I'm not planning to get so drunk that I fall down. Well, not today anyway. And really, falling down is something I do stone-cold sober. I seem to have more grace and agility after a few vodka-7's than any other time.
I promised a couple of FB friends I'd share my embarrassing post office story with them. And since it involves falling down, thinking about it inspired me to blog about it.
I have a long standing history of being the clumsiest member of the family... in fact, I believe I'm the clumsiest person I know. My hand-eye coordination is non-existant. As a kid, my dad loved to joke, "We should have named you Grace." Hardy har har. (What can I say? Dad's sense of humor is definitely old-school.) I hated sports. Track and field day was dreaded. I was slow, uncoordinated and not at all competitive. Growing up in a very sports-minded family was uncomfortable, to say the least. Seriously. They all loved football, basketball, baseball... I tried. I played soccer for a while - until I got put in as goalie and got sick of being hit with the ball. For some reason, everytime a ball was involved in play, I'd get hit right in the damned nose and end up bleeding all over the place. I mean everytime - dodge ball, volleyball, soccer. You name it. My parents couldn't understand why I'd rather be inside, reading a book. Ha!
Anywho... The point is I fall down. A lot. Not as much these days. I don't know if it was being pregnant, doing yoga, or working out but something has made me more aware of my center of gravity and I seem to stay upright a lot more. But when I fall, I really fall...
Last year, Wayne was in Iraq. Occasionally, he'd request certain goodies or necessities so I'd box them up and ship them overseas. Of course, to do so, I had to make a trip to the post office. On this particular day, I had several boxes. I think I was returning some online orders, shipping a huge box to Wayne and one other box somewhere. Once I got them all balanced at the car, I carted them into the post office and stacked them neatly by my feet in line. Thinking I was so smart, I set my purse on top and simply slid the boxes along as the line crept forward. Finally, so stoked that it was my turn, I began shoving/sliding my boxes across the floor. Of course, the open window was the furthest, but no problem, right? I had my little slide-y system. Until the bottom box caught in the grout of the tile floor, stopping all forward progression. Well, all the boxes' forward progression. Because I, the klutz of the world, kept moving forward. In an awkward, oh-so-graceful attempt to stop myself from falling face first on top of the boxes... well, I'm actually not sure how it happened, but I know I ended up with one box corner firmly dug into my inner calf, my flip-flopped feet spread as far as they could, in an almost splits maneuver while my purse upended and spilled all its contents across the entire post office. The people? Workers and customers alike? Simply stared. As I'm sure any of you would have. The only difference is that you all would have burst out laughing at me while they kept silent.
I had a black softball sized bruise on my leg for weeks... and the lovely limp that went along with it. And the post office? I seriously hate going in there. I think I have some sort of postal PTSD. So don't ask me to ship you anything large. Because I won't.