“That’s one small step for—oooopppphhhh!!”

I’m a klutz.  I’m the first person to admit I’m a klutz, but if you spend any time with me, especially out in the real world, you’ll see how true this is.  When I walk though a store, stuff mysteriously falls from the shelves in my wake.  I’m constantly bumping into, tripping over, and stepping on things.  When I discovered a bruise that was a few days old and larger than a golf ball on my ankle just before New Years, I was curious, but not really surprised.  I’m (accidentally) hurting myself constantly.

So, taking all of this into consideration, it’s a bit surprising that when I was house hunting, the house I fell in love with is a third-floor walk up condo, with exterior concrete steps.  The steps are covered, and the HOA does a good job of keeping the snow and ice cleared, so, for the past three years it’s been more of an annoyance than a hazard–especially for my father and brother-in-law whom I expect to help me move heavy furniture.  I’ve promised them that the next time I move, it will be into an actual single-family house.

Well, yesterday, I was running around like a madwoman preparing for an interview I have later this morning.  I’ve had several interviews since losing my job last spring, but this is the first that is vaguely design related, so I wanted to make sure my portfolio was in order.  And, of course, my printer decided it was out of colored ink.  So, I loaded everything up onto my thumb drive, and headed to the nearest Kinko’s.  Well, it turns out that a good part of my portfolio didn’t want to print from my thumb drive,  so back home to grab the laptop.  I’m gonna just run up the stairs, grab my computer and be back down to the car, right?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.  I managed to trip on the stairs, leaving a giant bruise on my ankle and hitting my knee right onto a concrete tread.  My first thought, once the white light over my eyes subsided, anyway, was “I hope I didn’t just chip a kneecap.”  But still, that portfolio isn’t going to print itself.  So I hobbled upstairs to my house, grabbed my computer, and hobbled back down to the car to head back to the Kinko’s.

Did I mention that this was my right leg?  Do you know how difficult it is to drive when your right leg feels like it’s going to fall off at the knee?

Fortunately, by the time I got to the store, the pain had subsided to the point where I could walk almost normally.  I got everything printed up and headed back home.  Upon reaching my apartment, and gaining access to the internet that wouldn’t cost me 10¢ a minute, I asked Google what the symptoms of a broken kneecap were, and discovered that I’m probably okay.  Still, if I had money and/or insurance, I’d head down to the emergency room just to be sure.

So, here’s the kicker (no pun intended.  Wait, was that a pun?) I have these giant bruises covering most of my lower leg, but they are the deep, painful, almost invisible kind, so I can’t even show them off.  Life is so unfair.

I’ll probably do an edit to let y’all know how the job interview goes, if anybody cares.  Right now, though, I’m wondering how big of a fashion faux pas it would be to wear Doc Martin type shoes with dress slacks.

Because, I’m not taking any more chances going down those stairs.

UPDATE:

I totally rocked the interview.  I spoke to both the contact person, and the owner of the company, and, while the owner was looking at my portfolio, he said “Yeah, you really know how to do this stuff”  I think if my references pull through for me, I’ve got the job!

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