My Life Monday

Rachelle from Ramblings of a tired teacher (and mom) going mad has started this new idea for my life Mondays. The first topic is my most memorable experience and I have a doozy!!

When I was 12, I went with my family to one of my brother's scout activities. Every month the scouts have an activity where the whole family is invited to go and this was usually held at the church. We ended up in the Primary room (on the teeny tiny chairs) and we had to stand up to do the watermelon cheer. For the watermelon cheer, everyone holds an imaginary piece of watermelon and takes bites all across the top, then you proceed to "spit" out the seeds. It was really fun. Anyway, after we had done the cheer they asked us to sit back down. My younger brothers and one of their friends were sitting behind me and they just started laughing...I thought it was because they enjoyed the cheer...boy, was I wrong!

As I started to sit I noticed that my chair seemed shorter than the other chairs around me. I kept going and going until finally my butt hit the floor with such force that there was an enormous CRACK! Someone had pulled the chair out from underneath me. I was in instant pain, with those tears that just seem to come when the pain hits. I was crying pretty hard and my brother and his friend were just laughing at me. Since they were laughing so hard at me I figured that they had been the culprits who had pulled the chair out from underneath me. I was VERY embarrassed, so I quickly left the room. I went to get into our suburban, but my butt hurt too badly to even climb into or on anything. So instead of riding home with my family...I walked. (Before you get to feeling sorry for me walking home in pain, I only lived a block away from the church!) That night I was complaining to my mom that I couldn't sit down. As I went to bed I couldn't even lay down on my back...the pain was that bad. I had to sleep on my belly all night.

The next day I went to see the doctor. He checked me out (how embarrassing...literally bare bottomed) and he concluded that I had broken my tailbone. There really isn't a cast for that kind of break, so I was told to sit on pillows and take some painkillers and it would eventually heal itself. It was quite a miserable time until that did heal.

For YEARS I thought that my one brother and his friend were the ones behind my broken behind, but just recently (about 3 years ago...11 years after initially breaking the thing) I found out that it was my OTHER brother. He was about 5 when it happened. He felt so bad that he hurt me (and probably worried that I would murder him if I knew it was him) that he kept it a secret for 11 years! When I found out I didn't get upset...like he thought I would....I laughed and laughed. He's such a tenderhearted guy that I could just imagine him feeling bad for all of those years about hurting his big sister. He still feels bad about it to this day...the poor kid will be 20 next month!

This is just one of the many klutzy moments I had growing up, but it was definitely one of the most memorable!