Sunday, September 9, 2012

The Traveling Arvin-bury Takes a Fall Trip

One should never plan a trip to the floor. Spontaneity is the key, my friends. This will set your new trip apart from any you've taken before. Just get up one day and go. Or try to. Nothing brings on error like the good ol' college try.

First, you must start out in a good mood so your false sense of infallibility can be righteously squelched. Also, for maximum confusatory status, I recommend you take the trip in the morning. A floor never looks so foreign as when you've just woken up and are hurtling toward it unimpeded by those annoying catchalls like chairs or desks. I have found that an extra long bed sheet trailing off the mattress onto the floor and curled up like a python is quite helpful in getting things started.

On your trip you will have many familiar experiences in brand new ways. Why, it'll feel as if you are tripping for the first time all over again! The dream-like confusion, the blood-chilling fear, and the humiliation. My oh my, the humiliation! If you fall in the company of others make certain you stand up quickly and act as if nothing happened. Nothing at all. It doesn't matter if you take a fall on live TV. Have the dignity and sense of self-preservation of a politician and deny it ever occurred.  You must walk away with the speed of an American tourist with Montezuma's Revenge. If you are alone when you take your trip, you must hit the ground with balled fists and cry for vengeance. Cry to heaven!

You will see many new things on your trip. You will see a chair or a table you think you know, and you will wave - you will wave frantically - but it will act as if it doesn't even know who you are. Some tables and chairs are unfortunately known for their rudeness. This is a cultural thing, having been carved into them when they were mere stools and nightstands. They are all somewhat stand-offish and rooted to their ways.

If you're lucky there will be a sense of strange slow motion to the fall, so you can experience every blabbering inner scream and cry of terror, every Holy shit! I'm falling! No, no, no, no! and every Why me, God? Why me? You may suddenly, if very briefly, find religion again. And then, very soon after, remember why you lost it in the first place after you receive absolutely no help from God's flaccid hand.

Brace yourself for impact upon arrival. Once you are there it will not seem half as intense as what you were expecting. Your head will not, in fact, fall off at the jolt and your plans for an Eva Peron style funeral in your honor will quickly be forgotten when you open your eyes again and squee silently I'm alive! Sweet Jebus, I'm alive!

Once you have seen what you want to see, once you've become acquainted with the dust bunnies under the bed and the dried piece of macaroni trumpeting your failure from under the desk, for god's sake, leave! But not without souvenirs. Be sure to pick up your bruises, and it's always polite to leave something behind. Maybe a big hole in the wall the size of your head. You want this trip to be remembered for years to come. Who knows when you'll have the opportunity to feel this humiliated again?

Oh, and be sure to give a call to your friends and family and let them know you've arrived at your surprise destination safely, and will soon be returning home. I'm positive they will be waiting for the exciting details of your trip, ready to laugh and laugh and laugh.

10 comments:

  1. Um, ouch?! You can write about it, so... it wasn't too bad... right?!

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    1. LOL. Yeah. I'm fine. I thought it would make an interesting starting point for my travel writing ;-)

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  2. Funny -- my tables and bookcases always try to catch ME. Usually with their corners, in painful places, like my forehead, or upper thigh. I take that trip frequently, in fact.

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    1. I took just such a fall last week whilst doing deadlifts in garage/barn/gym. Ouch!

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    2. I have found it's awkward at best to visit the Dr. They are required to ask if they think you might be being abused, and frankly, it gets boring repeating myself: "No, I'm pretty sure my husband is NOT hitting me, as he's currently in Afghanistan. Yes, I'm a complete klutz. No, I don't remember how I got that softball-sized bruise on my leg. No, I'm not dating anyone; I don't DO shit like that!" *eye roll* & after ridiculous amounts of testing, the only real conclusion is that "well, maybe it's just the fair skin, but you seem to show bruises easily." Duh. I *told* you.

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  3. but generally writing about travel is dull and plodding -- so of course yours would never be that. your mind is a wondrous thing EA

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  4. I''ve been on that "head sized hole in the wall train". It was a short and priceless fall down th stairs that sent me on it. Not to mention the "slip off the curb and break your foot" adventure trip! Sheesh!

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