I should have known what sort of day this was going to be when I woke up before my alarm, rolled over, curled up perfectly in my comforters... just in time for the alarm to go off.  Never a good sign, that.  After my usual morning peregrinations, I pulled on my fleece and checked the weather forecast for the day.  Freezing drizzle since late last night, changing to flurries and later, all rain.  Sweet.  Out the door of Pond Central I went, down the stairs and was greeted by...

...oh dear.  Sidewalks with no salt or sand, grass with a sheen of water-covered ice, and a weird mix of rain, sleet, and slurry falling from the sky.  The parking lot didn't look much better.  Still, looked doable: just take tiny steps and watch where you're going.  About halfway to the parking lot, I realized the sidewalk was much more ice-covered in front of me, so I diverted towards the lawn.  While my shoes would get wet... there looked to be a good half-inch of water on the ice-covered lawn... that would be much better than slipping.  And then things happened quickly.  One foot shot out from underneath me, the other one sort of flailed at the ground trying to get traction, and...

...the amount of pain engaging my knees was astounding.  I seemed to be in one piece, but I was face down on the grass, already soaked, and then I realized a lot of other things on the front of my body hurt.  I rolled onto by back, and that hurt as well.  Well, nothing for it, gotta stand up no matter how much you hurt.

I couldn't do it.

I couldn't get any lift off my right leg.  Partially because of Holy CREPE my knee hurt, but mostly because of the mud, water and ice I was lying in... my foot couldn't get the traction needed.  Which is when it hit me.

I was going to have to crawl.  If I could make it to the stairwell, I could use the railing there to stand up.  And so I did.  Some twenty minutes after I made impact with the ground, I got back into Pond Central, immediately changed back into sweats and a light sweater, and called into work for the day, explaining just what had occurred.  The news later reported that Duckford had gotten a late start on salting the roads, so they were horrible too... would have made for a fun drive to work, what with it mostly being on tertiary streets and all.

So half a day later, my right knee is swelling, hot, and bright pink.  My right shoulder feels like it got jammed on impact.  My left wrist hurts right where it sits on my keyboard's wristrest.  My back is sore.  Worst of all, my MP3 player has ceased to function.  It looks okay, but the screen doesn't light up, and when I connect it to my computer, nothing shows up.  I'm guessing it being in my right front pants pocket, having me fall on it, then get soaked in freezing water for 20 minutes might have had a deleterious effect on it.

There's always tomorrow.

UPDATE: The MP3 player works!  My cellphone, which had gotten very quiet (both earpiece and external speaker), now works!  My knee... well, it functions.  It's still bright pink, hot and tender.  I'm tentatively declaring my right shoulder "borked."  I can't lift my right arm over my head without a lot of discomfort.  My left wrist now only hurts when I move it.  So that's an improvement.  But the electronic devices work, and that's the important stuff!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:53 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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