Story time - How I Broke my Ankle (part 1)

I seem to have an odd history when it comes to bodily injury. In order to justify a statement like that, I decided to go back into the story archives and mention the time I broke my ankle when I was 21.

In the rehabilitation stage after the incident, I noted something. When you walk around on crutches for six weeks with your foot in a giant cast, complete strangers will help you out; get the door for you, hold the elevator, etc.

Most will say they do so out of kindness and they never expect anything for it. This is utter bullshit. They always want something, and that something is the story.

Which is fine, I guess, if your injury is comes out of you doing something cool, like, “I was skiing the black diamond run and took a wrong turn.” But if, for example, you broke your leg doing laundry, like I did, telling the story sucks.

I used to avoid telling it by going big into the ridiculous realm of story-telling. The second someone asked, I went “Well, you see, there was this bear, right. I saw him circling this innocent group of cub-scouts. At the time, I was hiking through the woods without shoes on (because, I like to train my body to climb Everest at any time, and I do so sherpa-style). I saw only one option, of course, so I stripped naked and prepared to fight.”

And on, and on the story would go.

The further into the story my audience let me go, the more preposterous the story would get. My record was 25 minutes at a Christmas party my room-mates threw. I finally got to the end, after which one very naïve girl asked “Really?”

I went, “No, not really. It was nothing like that.”

That was the only time I actually got out of telling the story, mainly because nobody else at the party wanted to talk to me after that. I didn't care. I had large amounts of both eggnog and Tylenol 3 in my system, I think I ended up talking to a house plant. Good times.