All My Gettings

I have this knack. Say I'm carrying something and happen to trip, fall, bump into someone, or otherwise experience the forces of what some call physics (I call it magic). For some reason, whatever I'm carrying comes out (mostly) unmolested. The plate of cookies stay on, the pile of books maintains order, or, in the case of today, the box overflowing with Future Librarians for Intellectual Freedom paraphernalia does not spill or even get knocked on the ground. It does, however, knock my chest. I think this skill has developed from years of not really living up the "Mountain Goat" that is my middle name.

Today's fall came about like this: I was schlepping a hefty box back to the library school after a successful table display in honour of Freedom to Read Week. It contained postcards, pamphlets, candy, and (best of all) books that have been challenged. We decided to go very visual this year and said challenged books are in chains. It's fantastic really. Especially when an African immigrant who's English is so-so stops to demand "Why those books in chains! Why you do that? What wrong with you?" But, at any rate, walking down the stairs with this large box in front of me, only half-paying attention to where I'm stepping when I miss the final step. I come down, hard, on the outside of my right foot, fall slowly backwards and land, both hands still on the box in the same spot when I was vertical, the box planted on my chest.

Now, the only aftermath is a throbbing, dull pain in my foot/ankle that is getting progressively worse as the evening wears on. I'm just going to have faith that it'll heal real soon. I don't think the fact that I have to walk everywhere is really going to help the situation. But, I wouldn't really want to, after nearly two full school years of avoiding it, become familiar with the Canadian health care system. I've heard rumors. Specifically, that doctors harvest your organs at the drop of a hat and then leave you to bleed to death. Or is that doctors illegally working in London hotels? I'm perennially confusing the two. Plus, they've only had antibiotics in Canada for, like, three years now.

Personally, I think it's God punishing me for being a little too keen on getting flirted up by the trig young man who wanted to talk about hate speech laws in Canada. Or it's meaningless. But, being the good Mormon I am, I think I'll read something into it. Something that makes me feel guilty.