BLOG OF SUCK; alternatively, “The Incident Report”

This blog would have been written sooner except my friend who was visiting this weekend informed me that I should make my blog better by, like, not sucking.

 

At least that was my interpretation. His exact words were intended to be constructive and more along the lines of: “You should write something that will make me want to share it with my friends. Not ‘me’ as in me, but ‘me’ as in the reader. You should write something that connects with people in some way.”

 

Ohhhhh, so that’s the trick. I should write something that people enjoy reading and want to share with their friends! That clears everything up!

 

So, being the “I don’t take things personally” person that I am, I refused to post what I’d written and instead sent the draft to myself in an email entitled BLOG OF SUCK.

 

I wish I could say I had an epiphany in the last four days and solved all of my problems, that what you’re about to see below is going to be a great blog and you’ll want to share it with your friends, but that’s not the case. In fact, you’ll probably abandon this half-way through to click on that link you saw on your Newsfeed that pertains to something relevant in your life, like “24 Things That Everyone Does In the Bathroom” or “97 Pictures of Cats That Will Make You Say ‘Awwww.’”

 

Meanwhile, for the three of you who want to continue reading, I’m going to give you a brief update on my life.*

 

*I believe this to be at least one of parents, because I think they’re obligated to support me as their only child; Lauren, because she and I share blood; and some lost web surfer who found my blog when he was searching for Nalgene warranties.**

 

**side note: “Nalgene warranty” is the most frequently searched tag that leads people to my blog, followed by “square poems” and “chinese calendar, sign of the tiger.”

 

All right, so here is my terrible blog.

 

The Incident Report

 

Saturday at work, near the end of a busy shift, I managed to do something that resembled this****:

 
http://swf.tubechop.com/tubechop.swf?vurl=dGjHK5X8mzE&start=6&end=8&cid=1884374

 

***I tried to embed the video and gave up after two hours because it kept embedding the part of the video I didn’t want. This could also be why I’m an unsuccessful blogger.

 

Things flew, namely the salad bowl I was carrying and my feet out from under me. It might have been funny if I didn’t land so forcefully that tears spontaneously burst forth. I fell directly onto my tailbone, but in such a way that I was flattened on my back and scared everyone into thinking I’d given myself a concussion. I was lying in the “outdoor,” which is a slick-tiled area between the kitchen and the dining room. Evidently there’d been a spill and it had just been mopped up when I went around the corner. Thankfully, I wasn’t in an area where I could be seen, except for my feet, resembling an early scene from The Wizard of Oz.

 

I knew immediately I could not get up, and did not want to get up. I felt like one of those football players (thankfully not this guy) who was down on the field with the huddle of trainers and coaches gathered round. “Delay of game, sorry folks!” Except in my case, the huddle was composed of all three managers, the sous chef, our culinary partner, a guest, at least two servers and everyone else who haphazardly tried to use the outdoor while I lay sprawled out trying to breath.

 

I attracted the attention of a nurse who was eating at a table nearby, and she kindly hurried to my aid to make sure I hadn’t broken my back or blacked out or started seizing. Her name was Sherry, which was memorable because it’s similar to my mom’s name, and she introduced herself as a registered nurse and said she was going to ask me some questions. I don’t remember all of them, but the first was if I’d ever fallen or been injured before.

 

This struck me as a joke, particularly since I do things like harm myself by slicing cheese without a cutting board on a regular basis. But Sherry was patient and soothing, and she asked several questions to discern where the pain was and how exactly I’d fallen.

 

I had the unfortunate experience of having to tell a crowd of people I’d landed primarily on my tailbone (yes, let’s all please direct our attention to the center of my butt), and she asked if I could move my legs and feel my toes. At one point she felt my forehead, perhaps because she was concerned I had whiplashed my skull into the tile, and when I said I thought I was okay, she informed me, “But your head is sweating.”

 

All in a good day’s work.

 

Eventually I ended up in a chair with a bag of ice, and I had to tell everyone what my tables needed so my guests wouldn’t be without food, ice cream, entree plates, or checks. I felt like such an inconvenience. “I’m disrupting the flow,” I said after apologizing for the tenth time. My managers, in a polite way, were like, “Please. Shut up.” And our culinary partner made me feel better by saying he disrupted the flow when he sliced his finger open and had to be rushed to the ER.

 

I suppose the kitchen losing a sous chef on a busy night was of greater impact than having a server go down near the end of her lunch shift, but still. I felt like a loser, a loser icing her bum.

 

I was then assisted like an elderly woman to the office where we had to file an incident report. I took an Excedrin and asked to finish my remaining tables.

 

It’s been five days–Tuesday was the first day I went back to work, in the middle of a blizzard–and I’m still hobbling around like a gorilla on two legs, unable to move laterally or carry heavy objects. I’m supposed to go in for physical therapy on Monday, so until then, exercising is out of the question, which is rather unfortunate given my unwillingness to change my diet. I thought today I could just try to step on and off my new step (a Christmas gift to myself!), and that’s literally all I could do: step on and off. No T-stomp, no “fast feet,” no lunges, no jogging, certainly no jumping—I will not be able to do any of the routine I’m supposed to teach people a week from Saturday.

 

 

By the way, did I mention I got certified to teach a class at my gym?

 

Hopefully I’ll experience miraculous healing between now and February 1^st.

 

Overall, though, I’m quite thankful to not have cracked my head open or broken a bone or slipped a disc. In addition, I was able to spend the weekend eating wonderful food, discovering new bakeries in downtown Providence, watching the Patriots LOSE, and enjoying the company of my favorite Greek who told me my blog sucks.

 

On the plus side, he did carry all my bags and massage my feet.

 

Things could be worse.