The Clumsiness Chronicles – 2

Miss Mishap.

As I was saying in my previous post, when I’m not spending the day disastrously juggling my phone or coffee mugs, you can find me smacking into poles or doorframes.

Life as a clumsy person is always amusing, more often for the viewers. You cannot walk from one corner of the room to another without colliding with objects that were not even in your path in the first place. It’s a magnetic pull, I tell you. It’s the universe plotting to turn dull into lively and entertain the people around you. Going from one cubicle to another at work would unfailingly consist of several ‘oops’, ‘ouch’s and ‘sorry’s.

Do we clumsy souls remain less accident-prone by NOT walking around? Unlikely.

There was this incident a few years ago, where I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom and thought it would be fun to dance at the same time. The clever ones know that it’s NEVER a good idea to dance in the bathroom. I slipped, hit my elbow (while trying to prevent the fall) on the wall first, and then banged my shoulder on the wall and then fell on the floor with a sort of comical *thud*. Triple effect tumble down. If it weren’t accidentally self inflicted, it could have been a fantastic WWE move. The elbow hurt for a week, the shoulder pain lasted much longer. Seriously though, don’t you ever think dancing on slippery tiles is fun! It never is.

The one who suffered the most in all this, was probably by mom. Okay, it was definitely my mom. The previous day of an important exam – while studying – I had managed to poke my eye with my plastic hair band, just like that. I’m not sure if I was trying to find out how close I could bring it to my eye or if I was checking how good my short-sighted vision was. Extremely fidgety hands and an inability to maintain balance make for a menacing combination. I’m thankful that I did not do anything related to medicine, or my name-plate would read Dr.Disaster.

I was less curious in the classroom, and more curious about ‘things not to do in life, in general’, I suppose. Mom had to always keep an eye on us. And by us, I mean, my brother too, the other half of the Delicate darlings, as our mom called us. LOL. We were anything but darlings. When we were not busy falling down or getting gashes on our head on our own, we would be playing Mortal Kombat with each other. Seldom the video game, more often the real-life one.

Among other curious adventures as a kid, I’ve tried inhaling a tamarind seed and thought I would die when it got stuck in my nose (yes… inhaled, almost), choked on horlicks (most of us have), got almost runover by a bicycle (oh yes.. that happened too) because maybe running across the main road was my definition of a superhero. You never know what runs in the mind of a juvenile. Case in point – I had once chopped off a quarter of my eyebrow with a scissor, for heaven knows what reason, and not realized what I was doing till I was halfway through it (No, it was not a fashion choice. I was barely 11)! I had to hide my wrongdoings by applying mom’s kajal. Obviously it didn’t help, as I looked like I was taking part in a mime show, and I had to reveal it all to my mom. Which turned her into a hawk, figuratively speaking. If my hands moved she would spot it from her peripheral view and yell at me, rightly so. She had become an expert at detecting sounds of any movement, and could hear it from the kitchen. Not that it stopped me from getting brilliant ideas, ‘ideas’ that I’m seriously questioning now.

The root cause for all the mishaps, after years of self-analysis, seems to be restlessness, in mind and body. I’ve a need to multi-task with tasks that are not meant for multi-tasking. Maybe if we had a fidget spinner back then, then it would have kept us clumsy and restless lot busy and safe.

Who am I kidding? It wouldn’t have lasted two days with me! 🙄

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Also read : The Clumsiness Chronicles – 1 (https://nainapemmaiah.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/the-clumsiness-chronicles-1/)