Lost socks, broken bones and confessionals

When a large portion of ones writing involves poking fun at others, passing judgement, and making less than flattering comments about same, it is vital to let your readers see your human side, especially those less than flattering moments. (scuse the run on). So today's post is in keeping with that rule of thumb.

I am , as my mother lovingly called me during my formative years, a Klutz. I am clumsy, always running in to shit, doing prat falls, minus the prat, breaking, spraining, cutting, disfiguring of self are all part of my repertoire. Think I'm kidding ? If only I were, read on.

Before I could walk I broke my leg in my crib no less. Apparently even as an infant I had a dislike of confinement that included bars. I tried to climb out of my crib when I was left unattended, made it to the top, got my leg hooked in the bars, snap , crackle, pop, broken leg.

I broke both arms before the age of 9.

I split my dome open attempting Roy Rogers like trick riding on one of those grocery store horses you put a dime in.

At the age of two-ish, I managed to get the car door open in the driveway, fell out face first and stuck a piece of gravel in my forehead, the tiny crater is still there. And before one of you judgemental child safety police types, asks why I wasn't in a car seat, it was the 60's for Christ's sake. Car seats were for pussies and rich kids.

Suffice to say I was an accident prone, clumsy, yet adorable child, who would grow in to a clumsy, accident prone, somewhat surly adult.

From the age of 18 to 25-ish, I was shot once, stabbed once, albeit multiple times and then there was this.

An unfortunate accident involving tightening the chain on a motorcycle while it was running and the rear tire was suspended in the air. My sleeve got caught in the sprocket, then my hand. Not real bright, huh? And while on the subject of "Not Very Brightness", here is a little anecdote from yesterday morning. And a Confession. First the confession.

I tan. I know it causes cancer, but not any worse than the cigarettes I smoke, and apparently that covers the hand crafted ones as well. Anyway, I visit the tanning booths for several reasons. Im lazy, Ive got a little paunch around the middle and if I'm tan' I look thinner. I'm naturally pale, and by pale I don't mean fair complected, I mean so pale I am translucent. I am also bi racial, black and white, Im black from the waist down and Im trying to even out the color scheme. Okay that last bit was bullshit, if I was any whiter Id be wearing dockers and driving a Volvo. So to make a long meaningless paragraph longer, to sum it all up, I tan for the same reason most of us Honkies tan, Vanity. Which is laughable in and of itself since Im about a 3 on a scale of 10 in the looks dept. Without the tan I'd be a minus 2. Now on to part two of this anecdote.

The Incident..............

Let me just say that I don't tan to the extreme where I look like an unwrapped mummy or the color of a pecan. I just go for a little color so people don't have to squint from looking directly into my whiteness. So ,I am at the tanning place , usual routine. Sign in, ogle the girl at the counter young enough to be my daughter, head for booth, undress, tan , get dressed, and that's where the problem arose. A problem that confirmed while I may be witty and smart, Im not particularly bright.

I,m a socks first kind of guy. When getting dressed I always start with my socks. I could only find one of my socks. I looked high and I looked low, no sock. It was as if the tanning booth had morphed in to some kind of giant sock eating dryer, it was gone, vanished in to so much cotton vapor. After about 5 minutes of searching the 8x10 room I gave up, took the single sock off my foot. I started to get dressed, pulled on my boxer briefs, and that's when i found the sock, attached to my pelvis like an albino elephant trunk. DOH!! Yes horrified reader my sock was encasing my bait and tackle. Why, how, and who cares, you say. First the how, I put the sock on my cock. Why, so my junk won't get burned. Who cares, well, probably nobody but me, but that's not the point. The point is that I somehow not only managed to forget that my sock, (tube sock) was hanging from my nether region, not only did I forget, but I managed to look for it for a good 4 or 5 minutes, while it was under my nose, so to speak.

Why am I telling you these apparently unrelated tales of broken arms, amputated fingers and sock stuffing? Good question. It's my way of saying that while I make quick, opinionated often critical comments about others, I am not above a little self deprecating often embarrassing admissions of my own foibles. Now that Ive gotten that out of the way, expect a few more weeks of finger pointing, overly critical observations, and mean spirited writing about other people and their problems.