The Stuff of Legend? Yep. That's me!

I have decided to take another trip down memory lane...

I have never made any secret of the fact that I'm one of the most uncoordinated people alive. The number of sprains, bumps, bruises, stitches, and broken toes would pretty much take me a week to relate in writing.(Although that could be a fun project...)


Anyway, instead of going through the gruelling horror show that is my list of injuries and overall clutziness, I will only tell of one series of injuries in particular...

My first ever broken bone was my ankle. I was twelve, and in the 7th grade. On that fateful day, I was in gym class, playing soccer out on their death trap of a playing field. By "death trap," I mean that there were multiple divots and pot-holes in the ground that were hidden by grass. I'd rolled my ankles on multiple occasions, but not so spectacularly as on that memorable day...

It was cloudy outside, but not cold. I was assigned to play a defensive position, therefore I was stuck on my side of the playing field. The other team's offense pretty much sucked, so all the action was taking place at their end of the field. Growing bored, my fellow defensive players and I started messing around. You know, doing cartwheels, jumping around, the usual stuff.


Predictably, during one of these outbursts of jumping, my foot landed in one of the killer grass-hidden divots and my ankle rolled, making an impressive crackling sound. Hoping it was just a sprain, I walked on it for about a week before asking to be taken to the doctor. The bone was fractured, and they put me in a brace.

After the required number of weeks, I was all healed up, and the brace was taken off. But...one day, jumping around in my room, dancing to music, (yes, I jumped around a lot, don't judge!), I rolled that same ankle and RE-BROKE IT! Of course, this just had to happen the day before summer vacation started. It sucked.

Anyway, let's jump forward to two years later. I was 14, in 9th grade, and...you guessed it, in gym class again. Anyway, there was a dance portion that we all had to participate in. We learned such basic dances as the Fox Trot, Waltz, the Bunny Hop, and various line dances. At the end of this learning experience, there was an exam day, when we were tested and graded according to our mad dancing skills.

On the day in question, I was doing pretty well. I could keep up with the rhythm and remembered all of the steps to the different dances. Then came the final test for the day...The Bunny Hop. We were split up into different groups, formed lines, and were required to Bunny Hop until the song ended. Things were going fine. My friend and I were in the same line, and having fun.

Then a group of boys thought it would be SOOO funny to intentionally crash into our line, breaking right through us. In my mad scramble to catch up to my group, I twisted my ankle (the opposite from the one I'd already broken twice). There was a horrible cracking sound, and I was in excruciating pain. I tried to dance it off, but it only got worse. I flagged down my teacher, and with my friend she helped get me off the dance floor and into a seat.

Taking off my shoe, we saw that the ankle was swelling impressively, and my teacher got me some ice to put on it. Since the injury wasn't getting any better, I hobbled to the main office and called my mom, who promptly picked me up. After a couple of days, the pain wasn't getting any better, so I went to the doctor and...(fanfare please)...it was broken. I was in a boot for a majority of that school year.

A couple of years later, I was in high school, and my little sister was in Junior High. One day she comes home, and relates to us a story about her day in gym class. They had started on the dance portion of that year's curriculum, and were about to learn the Bunny Hop.

The teacher, while talking about the Hop, said: "Now, you all need to be careful when you're learning the Bunny Hop. We actually had a girl break her ankle while doing this a few years ago." My sister promptly volunteered the fact that her sister--me--was the clutz in question.

That's right, my crippling clutziness made me a freaking legend! At least my talents aren't being wasted...