January Story- Clumsy Girl

I'm the world's clumsiest person. I'm not kidding you, my best friend, Aim, actually called up Guinness World Records when we were 13 and submitted me as world's clumsiest person. Aim had bought a camera without my knowledge and secretly filmed me for a straight 48 hours, in which time I managed to drop my school books, a plate I'd been putting away from the dishwasher, slice my finger while skinning potatoes, fell down the stairs carrying laundry, and had no less than fifteen other various slips and trips. The Guinness' people laughed a while at the tape, and then proudly handed over a certificate which confirmed that I was, at least for a year, the world's clumsiest person. I'm not sure, but I think I still hold the record.

I am proud of my title though. I mean, how many teenagers can say they've earned a spot in the world records book? And while I may be clumsy, I am blessed enough to say that my clumsiness has never once caused me to break a bone or fracture an ankle or anything of the sort. I've never once been to the hospital, or even the doctors because of my clumsiness. Quite an accomplishment as I'm about to turn nineteen. At least, that's what I was thinking about when Aim asked if I wanted to spend a day at the local park with him. Well, ok, I wasn't thinking about how lucky I was to have never landed myself in the hospital, but I was quite focused on the fact that my time as an eighteen year old was about to expire.

I hold fast to the belief that certain ages are magical. At five you start school, at ten you get your first boyfriend, at thirteen you start wearing makeup and get to go to the middle school dances, at sixteen you get your first "serious" boyfriend and eighteen you graduate and life really starts for you. The end of my eighteenth year, for me, meant that I was preparing to settle into three years of college and same-old same-old routine. The magic year was over. My next magic year would be twenty-one. Which at the moment seemed a long time ago. After discussing my small depression about turning nineteen, Aim said we should take a gabillion pictures so that I can keep some of my eighteenth year forever. Which is how I found myself dancing around stairs and running up and down hills without a care in the world, the day before I turned nineteen. Which, if you are intelligent, is not a smart situation for a girl who is the world's clumsiest human to find herself in.

We'd been in the park for about five hours when the inevitable happened- I fell. And I guess, since it was still a magical year, it was only to be expected that this wasn't a normal fall. Aim had been taking pictures of me atop a hill dancing, from the bottom of the staircase when we heard the ice cream man coming for his 3:30 stop in the park. Of course all the little kids clamored around, holding out dollar bills their parents had given them, and I got overly excited at the chance to do something completely childish like buying an ice cream cone from the ice cream man the day before I turned nineteen. So I turned to the stairs, which were less crowded than the grass-covered hill that was squirming with children, and started to run down them. I made it a full three stairs when my shoelace caught beneath my foot and tripped me. Unfortunately, as I was running, my body had worked up momentum and so down I went. I hit my head on the first stair, while I tried to stop, and kept tumbling down. I was knocked out by the time I hit the pavement at the end of the tall, two-story staircase.

I don't remember anything at all about passing out. All I know is that when I woke up only Aim and my mother were by my bedside, and there were IV cords stuck on my arms and an annoying beeping sound. Actually, all that hit my slightly after I regained consciousness, my first thought was that wherever I was, it smelled like sick. Not throw-up sick, but the kind of sickness that is 'smelt' inside any given room in a hospital. It's like the smell is inside of the walls. The next immediate thing I realized was that I wasn't able to move my arms, and that in fact my left arm was being held in what felt a lot like a cast. Then I opened my eyes to see my mother, and what else but Aim with his camera in hand.

"Dex, you OK?" It was Aim that spoke first.

"Well... I never thought I'd find myself here..," I said, looking around at the sickingly white, plain walls.

"You fell down good..." Aim said grimly, but then I saw a grin spread across his face, "wanna see the pictures?"

I laughed. It was so like Aim to make sure and capture my first hospitalizable fall in pictures. "Maybe later." I said, not sure I was quite ready to see what exactly my body looked like falling bad enough to cause this.

"I better go and fetch your doctor." My mother said. No doubt later when we were alone I'd get some sort of lecture about how I should watch where I'm going. She got up and left the room.

"So is it my birthday yet?" I asked Aim.

"Um... you've been out about 36 hours." Aim said, shifting his eyes to look anywhere but at me.

"Thirty-six hours?" I said, making sure there was no sign of emotion in my voice.

"Thiry-six hours." Aim confirmed.

I tried to grin, "I suppose you took hour by hour pictures?"

"Close. Your mother got annoyed at me... so I took them whenever she went to the bathroom or to get a drink."

"Hello Dextra! Nice to see you've joined the conscious world! How are you feeling."

My doctor was a young man, surely not even thirty years old. And honestly not bad looking. I felt like I should sit up, like they do after surgery in the movies... but my arm being in a cast hindered that idea slightly. "I'm doing ok. No pain. How bad is this arm anyways?"

"Well you fractured your elbow pretty severely. When you got in here I could actually see the bone, so we had to do a bit of a skin draft, and some of your nerves may be damaged. We'll have to wait to see, but I don't think there will be any permanent damage. We expect you will be out of here in about a week."

"A week?" I said, confused.

"Well, your face took a bit of a hit too. Those skin drafts need to be watched more if you don't want permanent scarring, so you'll stay here a week for those to heal. Now it appears that you are functioning fine, but let's go over a few questions."

It took all of my self-restraint not to roll my eyes. Here comes those idiotic questions about what is my name and phone number and address and who is the president and any other question anyone with any memory at all knows the answer to.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" He asked, holding up his index and middle finger.

I sighed. "Two."

"What's your name?"

Another sigh. "Dextra Ann Groston."

"How old are you?"

"Well according to Aim I'm nineteen. I guess I missed my birthday." I grumbled.

"The president of the United States?"

"Obama."

"First name?"

"... I'm not sure." This made me upset. I just could not think of our president's first name. Which meant that some of my memory apparently had suffered.

"You mother's full name?"

"Rebecka Groston."

"Middle name?"

"Can't remember."

"Before you woke up here what's the last thing you remember?"

"Ice cream. I wanted an ice cream cone from the ice cream man at the park."

"How did you get hurt?"

"I'm not sure. Probably some sort of fall. I'm the world's clumsiest person."

My doctor actually laughed at me. "We all have our moments. I'm sure you aren't _that_ bad."

"No, really. Look it up. She has the world record as the clumsiest person in the world, I submitted her for it 6 years ago!" Aim said proudly, it looked like it was taking everything he had not to laugh.

"Well then, I guess you aren't a stranger to falls and broken bones."

"Actually... this is a first. Never been hospitalized."

"Well it's all very basic. Although your skin took a big hit, your elbow was just fractured a little bit, so you'll keep this cast on for 3 weeks. Our nurses will help you bathe and by the time you leave this hospital you'll be able to continue most of your normal life with the cast... though I'd advise against all the tripping and falling."

I think- I hope- that was his idea of humor. As if I ever _meant_ to fall. "It does appear that your memory has been messed with. Nothing too serious, just miscellaneous information that will no doubt come back as you heal."

I nodded. It annoyed me that I couldn't remember my mothers middle name, but I suppose it'a not as bad as if I was the mom and I forgot my kid's middle name. My doctor got up to leave just as Mom came back in the room. "How is she?"

He turned around and smiled at my mother. "She's fine. I was just telling her what we told you about her staying here a couple weeks and checking up on her now that she's gain consciousness. Her memory isn't perfect but it's nothing that is cause for concern. I'd actually be more concerned if her memory was perfect. Usually that means that something deeper in the brain was messed up and we don't find out for  while, until she starts to walk around and continue her normal life. So all looks well. I'll be back to check on her in a few hours. If you need anything, buzz the nurses." And with that, he actually finally left.

"I've said it before, we're in great shape with him as our doctor." Aim said sarcastically.

"Aimus!" My mother snapped at him, "Doctor Bernard is doing all he can."

"Yea, I'm sure." Again, his voice was loaded down with sarcasm. "It's just that when we got her here, his first observation was not that she was passed out, or even bleeding, but that her arm appeared to be broken." I laughed upon hearing this. Leave it to me to get the new doctor.

"Are you feeling ok?" My mother asked, not commenting on Aim's last statement.

"I feel great. Minus the fact that I can't move my arm. That's honestly just weird."

"Don't worry, Dex, I updated your twitter and facebook statuses for you. I also sent I message to Kevin for you, he said that he'll stop by later today." I grinned to myself. Aim was such an awesome friend.

"Kevin is coming by?" Mom asked.

"Yup. After he gets off work. Pizza Hut called him in for deliveries last minute.

"Well... that's nice of him."

"What's there to eat?" I asked, trying to change the subject. Mom never even gave Kevin a chance, my whole life she's been convinced that I'm going to marry Aim. Which is why she puts up with him and treats him like part of the family. Still, Kevin and I have been together for a year and a half so hearing that he was stopping by was good news. The bad news was that I'm sure Aim had no intent of leaving and... like my mother, Aim didn't see eye-to-eye with Kevin. Though, thankfully, he did respect me enough to know Kevin meant  lot to me.

"There's chicken in the cafeteria."

"Could you get that for me please?"

"You can buzz the nurses Dex." Mom said.

"I know... but you know I like ranch with my chicken, and I know you won't let them skimp on the chicken." She sighed, then left to get my chicken. I turned to Aim. "Ok, let's see those pictures."

Aim reached into his black backpack that he always kept with him and retrieved his camera. "Here." He turned it on to play-back mode. "This one is rather mild. You had just started to fall, and I caught this before you had hit your head." I looked into the camera. I could see what he meant by "I look good falling." You weren't yet able to tell I was about to hit my head, but I was falling towards the camera with my arms out to catch my fall, spread far enough to almost look like I was falling cause I knew the worst thing you can do is try to stick your arms out directly in front of you when falling. The ideal pose is to keep your arms folded into your body... but that always has freaked me out, so I comprimize by spreading my arms so as not to have them directly in front of me.

"Next." I said. He flipped to the next photo and gave me a play-by-play of what had happened. After I had hit my head he'd been worried and instead of snapping pictures had started yelling my name. When, however there was no reply, he decided to meet me where I stopped and tae as many pics as he could. The next few pictures were brutal. My head was tucked under me a lot, and my arms and legs alternating which was on the ground. One he got that looked like I was doing a rather limp headstand on the stairs. That one made me laugh. Finally I got to the last picture, the one at the end of my fall. I had been passed out, and most of my face was skinned, as well as my legs and arms. The fact that I had been wearing jeans helped my legs, but no such luck for my arms. I turned my head to face Aim. "You know, I should move to Alaska." I said, matter-of-factly.

Aim laughed. "There's still no national healthcare up there."

"I know... but I'm talking about all the layers of clothing I'd have to wear year-round. If I had a penguin-suit on, I'd hardly have scratched myself so much.Still would have to deal with this broken arm... but not all the messed up skin."

"You know, if we lived in Alaska, I'd never be able to get you to go to a park. 'It's too cold!" you'd say.

"I'd be used to it. Any more pictures?"

"Just one of you in the hospital bed all patched up and passed out." Aim  flipped through them.

"I can't believe I missed my last 7 hours of being eighteen."

"Well... if it means that much to you, we can push your birthday forward 2 days. Happy nineteenth birthday Dexi! Guess what that means?"

"What?"

"In three years, you don't get to drink until you are technically 21 and two days old!"

"That's all for the best I suppose... surely I'll get knocked out for a week then."

"What? You gonna start spending all your birthdays in the hospital? You know, you have 207 bones to chose from when it comes to breaking them."

"Not every birthday... but I bet you anything all of the magical ones I  will."

"You and your magic. Honestly, it's just a measure of the time you spent mindlessly going around the sun. Don't you feel good, you've made it an entire nineteen times around the sun!"

"Here you go Dex." Mom said handing me a tray with five chicken strips on it.

"Thanks Mom."