The Excitement of the First Time

There's nothing quite like experiencing something for the first time. First kiss, losing your virginity, robbing the elderly, getting on an airplane, taking a trip to a different country, masturbating in the woods, getting hilariously drunk—never mind, that actually sucks, but you get the picture.

It's no secret that I'm getting older, cruising the fast lane to Dead and Gone, pop. shitload. A few years ago, I began noticing wayward hairs creeping out of my nostrils. So I took to plucking those hairs. Fast forward a year or so, and I began to pluck out gray nose hairs. Weak. Now, I have taken it to the next (less painful) level and own a Remington nose-hair trimmer. That's no good for the hair now growing from my ear lobes, or the spastic eyebrow hair that I can see waving around like a wheat field when it's windy, but it's just hair. What happens when the ninja skills begin to deteriorate?

Bad things, of course.

This morning, in the shower, I learned for the first time what it's like to become an old ninja—with bad balance. I turned on the water, stepped into the back end of the shower, and leaned forward to adjust the knobs to get the water to the right temperature. That done, I stepped under the showerhead, planted my right foot on a slippery spot...

And hilarity ensued.

I can't quite recall the immediate events after first slipping, but at some point I knew I was going down. That sucks enough. But I was also going out! That sucks even more. Yeah, I fell out of the shower! In the process, I tried to recover my balance by grabbing the showerhead with my right hand, but only managed to turn it in the direction I was falling. I reached up with my left hand and—way too hard—grabbed for the shower-curtain rod. Bad move. That sent the whole thing flying. So as I'm going down, I continue the motion with my left arm and try to brace myself against the bathroom counter. At the same time, I reached out with my right hand and grabbed the knob for the cold water. Then I felt sharp pain race across my back. Of course a drawer under the sink was open. Of course! So as the corner of the drawer gouges the skin from back, my left arm slips off the edge of the counter and I unceremoniously crash to the floor. The motion makes my right hand—the one still holding the cold water faucet, that already turned the showerhead to point out of the shower, where I now lay—turn the cold water off.

So not only have I fallen out of the frickin shower and had the corner of a frickin drawer slice my back open, I'm being burned alive by scalding water. Only in my world and bad Hollywood comedies does stuff like this happen. Absolutely ridiculous.

The final injury report includes a sore neck, sprained right big toe, bruised left ankle, six-inch gouge below my left shoulder blade, sore ass, slightly burned skin, and a damaged ego. The funny bone remains intact, though. So I can laugh about it, even though it was a bit scary. All five seconds of it. Haha!