Taking the Fall: The Stumble and Crack Heard 'round the School

Yesterday at tennis, my friend Meredith went teacup over teakettle. She was taking an overhead feed in a lesson and down she went. For the record she hit the ball for a winner down the alley. Or at least I told her I'd write that if she let me use her real name. She also looked thin, pretty and young. In any case, seeing her drop to the ground faster than Lady Mary Crawley hearing of Matthew's car accident, brought me back to 1983: the year that will forever remain a defining moment in my klutzy life.

I was a scrawny 10th grader with a big crush on the senior who helped out in my gym class. The course unit was indoor floor hockey and I was all about making a plan to get noticed by Steve Austin (unlike Meredith, this was not his name, nor was he bionic as far as I know). Here's how the plan was supposed to go down:

• Pretend to get checked during floor hockey game
• Fall to ground and pretend to need help
• Steve Austin will rush over and help me up
• We make eye contact as he double checks to make sure I'm ok
• I get to think about that for the rest of the day and possibly the semester

Here's what really happened:

• I pretended to get checked during floor hockey game
• I overacted the fall, lost my balance and stumbled backward
• I landed in a seated position cushioning my fall with my hands
• I broke both wrists in said landing

Technically the left was broken and the right was sprained, but I showed up the next day with one permanent and one removable cast. My awesome plan to get noticed sure worked. Every kid in the school called me "Broken Arms" -- everyone except Steve Austin who never called me anything.

One more thing: I owe a 30-year-old apology to Mark Maizel -- the guy who happened to be standing next to me when I took my flop and assumed he'd knocked into me. Out of sheer embarrassment, I never corrected him. Luckily he's on FB. Hi Mark and I'm so sorry (if you even remember this incident)!!