Jackass Training for Jackasses

I took the weekend off from exercising for reasons that are less than stellar. (Primarily: "Because I don't feel like it.") So when I got home from work yesterday I did a double session of weight lifting to start making up the difference. I made it all the way through my upper body stuff and then went on to legs and abs. This was not the most brilliant of plans, but I figured it wouldn't have too many negative effects since I didn't have much else to do that night but lie on the couch.

Immediately after finishing, while lying in a crumpled heap on the floor about to pass out, I realized that I still needed to go to Blockbuster and Target that night. Frnak's last movie was due, we had no laundry detergent, and I had not a single clean pair of underwear, socks, or towels anywhere in the house. I dragged myself up off the ground, mopped up the puddle of sweat that I left on the floor, and made my way to the stores.

Understand that this should not have been some sort of super-human undertaking. Both stores are within half a mile of my apartment, it's not like I was trekking across the state to get these errands done. Unfortunately, I was seriously wiped out and just barely made it into the Blockbuster before I misjudged my spatial relation to the Apply For Work at Blockbuster! station, and ran directly into its chair.

This was not your standard fare "distraction, glancing-blow, get-embarrassed-and-keep-walking" sort of crash. No, this was more of a "Dick Van Dyke, sprawling-over-furniture" fall. It caught me directly in the midsection and the resulting momentum sent me flailing forward, taking the chair with me. As I fell the wind was knocked out of me, but otherwise I was just fine. That is, until my knee got caught between the leg of the chair and the side of the station. So when I twisted in order to catch my fall, my knee decided not to twist with me.

It was ugly, painful, and embarrassing, but I survived (mostly because there were very few people around to witness it). By the time I finished picking out my movie and got out of the store, my sore knee was almost limp-free. I considered scrapping the Target run, (usually falling down that early in a trip is a sign that only many more bad things will happen) but I really needed to do laundry, lest I have a lot to explain at work the next day. I pressed on.

Naturally, as I got out of my truck in the next parking lot, I took one step and my knee collapsed on me. I fell directly forward, this time into one of those shopping cart return spaces, smacking my other knee against the aluminum frame, as hard as possible while under my own power.

"Just awesome," I thought while wincing through the intense pain.

I recovered myself and started to head into the store as fast as possible, trying to mask my now incredibly awkward limp as much as I could, now that it was both of my legs. By the time I was halfway through the parking lot, though, I gave up the charade and went with the limp, as it eased the pain immensely.

Sadly, my timing was off. Unobserved by me, at literally the exact same time, there was an old man walking parallel to me about 8 feet to my right. The man had a cane and was walking with a pronounced limp, incredibly similar to my own. As I said, I was entirely unaware of this, until the Target employee at the door gave me the absolutely darkest look I've received in months. I did a little double-take and looked around, trying to find the source of his disdain, only then finally seeing the old man who was entering the store at the same time. He was staring at me with the most profound look of disappointment.

I wanted to stop time at that second, pull them to the side, and plead my case, closing statement to a jury style. I would explain to them that I was not some kind of wildly insensitive mimicking asshole. That I had just somehow managed to injure not just one, but both of my knees in the last 10 minutes in the most spectacular and embarrassing ways possible. That it was a coincidence of epic proportions that we happened to both be walking in the same store at the same time. Usually I'm a nice, upstanding boy. I would make them understand. They would have to understand, and would laugh at the coincidence.

As I raised a finger and opened my mouth to start the denials, the old man shook his head and walked into the store. I turned back to try the employee, but he had already wandered off towards some other employees collecting carts in the lot, no doubt to implore them to "check out the jackass with the fake limp."

And just like that, I would always be remembered as the guy who mocked an injured old man in the Target parking lot. For, I dunno, laughs I guess.

This is just one of the reasons I should not be let outdoors, people.