Face Plant!

People who have seen me recently, or those who are my “Friends” on Facebook, expressed some shock at my appearance. You see, I had a bit of an, uh… “accident.”

I had a busy day, Sunday. I attended worship at a church where two young people who have been part of the youth group I lead were being confirmed. Afterwards I headed back to my own church to prepare for and run a “Family Fun Day.” 

I was exhausted by the time it was all over. Sitting in the living room, recognizing that I was hungry but had little desire to actually cook a meal, I decided to get some take-out. 

I should point out that I have greatly cut back on take-out and fast food meals over the past year or so. While there are times, especially when I’m teaching driving, that I will grab some fast food, I do try to pick reasonably healthy items.

I love pizza, but I also begrudge the cost of take-out pizza. (I’m starting to sound like my mother, but… I remember when the Suriano’s Wednesday special was a medium 2-item for less than $4.) I will typically order a large, as it is the best value for the money.

The problem with that is there is just me to eat it. Yes, the plan is to have some available for lunch the next day. Unfortunately, it also ends up being the evening snack and breakfast the next morning.

So, although I do often get the notion to grab a pizza, I will more often resist.

Once in a while, as was the case Sunday, I indulge myself. I ordered a pizza, then headed out to pick it up.

I arrived just as it had been taken out of the oven, sliced, and boxed. 

Mmm! Fresh, hot pizza! (Pepperoni, ham and pineapple. Mmm!)

I paid for the pie, then headed back out to my van. That’s when I had my first inkling of trouble.

I was carrying the pizza, thinking (as I stated, above) about how the price of a pizza has increased over the last twenty years, when I felt a tugging sensation at my left ankle. 

The boots I wear have metal hooks for the top two eyelets, to make lacing them quicker. However, I tie the laces at the last proper eyelet, so that I can slip the boots on-and-off without bothering with the laces at all.

Because of this, my pant cuff occasionally catches on the hooked eyelet. This is the first thought I had when I felt the tugging.

Unfortunately, as I took my next step my right foot stopped in mid-air. I pitched forward, the pizza flew from my hands, and I made a perfect three-point landing on the asphalt parking lot: the heels of both hands and my nose simultaneously smacking into the pavement.

I have to say that when you hear people say, “It was like it happened in slow motion,” that is perfectly accurate.

I had time to recognize what had caused me to trip, and that as I was leaving the house I had noticed that the laces on my right boot — which normally are double-tied — were hanging down, but I chose not to re-tie them; I had time to contemplate the fact that I was about to fall, face-first, onto the pavement; and I hoped that the pizza box would remain intact.

I can’t see that the fall took any longer than one second.

After a few stunned moments laying on the ground, I looked up and saw that half of the pizza had been ejected from the box and was spread around on the ground. Then the pain began.

As I got up, swearing mildly, I recognized that nose would likely be bleeding, and if not it would most certainly begin to do so. I found my keys, hit the unlock button on the fob, and retrieved my first aid kit from the back of the van.

I then opened the front passenger door, set the kit on the seat and extracted some 4x4 pads.

I was somewhat conforted by the relative lack of blood. Yes, there was bleeding, but not as much as I thought would be produced by a broken nose. (I had not, to that point, ever broken my nose.) I was able to wipe some of the sand from the abrasions on the heels of my hands, staunch the bleeding from my nose, and then consider my next move.

I gave thought to taking myself to the hospital, just to have things checked out. I decided against that, however. My nose had stopped bleeding, I did not appear to be experiencing any of the symptoms of a concussion (and believe me, I do know what those are), and there really didn’t seem much need to go wait for who knows how long to be seen at the ER.

I gathered-up the remains of the pizza, stuffing the loose pieces back into the box in the hope I could salvage them (they had, fortunately, remained face up), got into my van and drove home.

Once home, after dropping the pizza on the kitchen counter, I headed to the bathroom to better examine and clean my wounds.

What a mess!

With wounds cleaned and dressed, I returned to the kitchen, discarded the pieces of pizza that had “escaped” and put three of the remaining pieces on a plate.

Just a note of caution: when you fling a pizza to the ground and the lid opens, even the pieces that stay in the box can end up sprinkled with sand and gravel. The first couple of bites were terrific, but the third bite had a bit more, shall we say, “texture.”

Oh well. At a revised cost of five bucks per slice, I could handle a bit of sand. Call it “roughage.”

I have taken a series of pictures and posted them on my (very aptly-named) Facebook page. The first day was mostly just the abrasions, and some slight bruising around the eyes.

The second day the bruising had spread to the point where it looked as though I was crying purple tears. Today, the third day, the bruising has further spread down below my eyes and across the tops of my cheeks.

There is surprisingly little pain, however. At least, there’s very little discomfort to my face.

The abrasions on my hands, on the other hand… OUCH!

You don’t realize how much your hands come in contact with: reaching into a pocket, pushing a door open, even resting on a desk surface using a computer mouse.

I will survive. And I have learned an important lesson…

…always make sure your laces are tied.

But… that’s just my opinion.