Did I just fall?

Did I Just Fall?

"Yes, you did," is what the body told the brain the other day at about 6:15 in the morning. "And not only did you actually fall, you sorta jumped first, then fell," the body continued to describe to the brain. The now irritated body asked the brain, "Have we not walked down this same set of stairs a thousand of times? For crying out loud, it's not rocket science, there's seven stairs and you should know that by now! " The brain, still in shock, retorted with, "Well, it was pitch dark in the house and really early in the morning and ... we hadn't had a full cup of coffee yet and ... I was making to-do lists," and so on and so on, excuse after excuse. Finally the brain decided it was the eyes' fault for not looking down at the stairs but rather focusing forward on the dim nightlight in the kitchen.

The eyes couldn't see the stairs due to the early morning darkness so they did what eyes do and searched for any source of light. Apparently their lack of focus on the task at hand caused the body to miscalculate the number of stairs and so when the legs thought they were done stepping down, they took off towards the living room. However, unbeknownst to them, there were two stairs in the set left to go, which resulted in the body sort of going airborne temporarily, and landing in a contorted criss-cross applesauce sit style at the bottom of the stairs. The impact of the adult body jumping from the stairs and landing in a sitting position on the floor sounded similar to a sonic boom and caused the entire structure of the home to shudder. Surprisingly this did not wake all the sleeping children but I'm pretty sure gave the family hamster, sleeping in the next room, a mini-heart attack. Oh well, rodents are jittery anyway.

So the body, which didn't accept the brain's excuse that it was the eyes' fault, asked the brain, "Well, here we sit, plopped down on the floor in the dark, so....what do we do next?" The brain composed itself and gathered its thoughts. Due to the fact the body is over 40 years old, the procedures manual on What To Do If You Fall was filed away years ago and hasn't been updated in 20 years. Therefore, the brain needed a few minutes to research that, plus take into account the fact the body has aged a bit so not all the sections in the manual applied anymore. With that, the brain decided to have the body first evaluate itself while in the sitting position. It asked the body, "Does anything hurt right at this very moment?" The body did a quick assessment and answered, "No, not that I can tell." "Okay," said the brain, "Now, we'll go slow here, but try and stand." The body slowly stood up. The eyes focused on the floor this time and not the shiny kitchen light so that helped keep everything balanced. "Great! You're standing," said the brain, "Now, let's do a parts check. Ankles, you go first. Twist around and make sure you're good to go. Then knees, wrists and elbows, in that order." The body followed the brain's instructions and each part did a little inventory check and made sure all their connections were intact and functioning properly. All that was found was a minor carpet burn on the top of the left foot.

So after receiving a green light from the body that everything seemed to be up and running for the time being, the brain let out a huge sigh of relief, "PHEW! We escaped a close one there, everybody. I gotta apologize for my role in this morning's incident but thank goodness no one was hurt. Who knows how long that woulda taken to recover." The body let the brain keep talking while it went about its daily routine, after flipping on a few lights, of course. While the body was busy getting ready for the day, the brain was still going on and on about the whole episode, giggling out loud at some points but mostly thanking the body over and over for taking such a hit.

For my sake and I sure am glad they worked that situation out or else my weekend would have been ruined!