Thank God for Health Insurance!

Have you ever watched the movie Miss Congeniality? Sandra Bullock, plays a frumpy FBI agent who goes undercover posing as a beauty pageant contestant named Gracie-Lou Freebush. In one scene she has been made over by her fabulous pageant coach and emerges from an airplane hanger as all of her fellow agents stand and gawk. She’s in a tight little dress, hair blowing, flawless makeup…..and then she trips and stumbles forward. For those of you who might have missed the movie I have attached the clip.

https://youtu.be/tcItlVmksyM

            After watching that scene I called my friend and pageant coach Dohn and told him that I suspected we were being followed. A few minutes later Sandy B. charged onto stage at the fictitious Miss United States Pageant wearing a Statute of Liberty costume and fell again. 

                                                                                                      

            This time I called Dohn back and said I was positive we were being followed.

            Obviously the comedic genius of Miss Congeniality was that a clumsy, tomboy, FBI agent successfully infiltrated the world of tall, poised, accomplished and overall perfect beauty queens and realized in the process that it was really hard work! It hit close to home for me because in 2005, I was the Gracie-Lou Freebush of the Mrs. America Organization.  But that is another story for another day…..back to my clumsiness. I would like to share with you a few of my greatest hits…pun intended.

 I was back stage at the Mrs. World Pageant in Amby Valley, India, waiting for my cue to join the “Parade of Nations” on stage. My Statute of Liberty gown, chosen to represent the strength of the women of our country, was lovingly created, and hand beaded, by New York designer, and TV personality, Rob Younkers. That too is a story for another time.

So, I waited nervously backstage, teetering on my 4-inch lucite, Barbie Doll heels while the back stage attendants pinned my “Mrs. America” banner to the front of my gown. Suddenly, one of the contestants, who having made clear early on that she felt no love for me or my country, breezed past and gave me a good solid push at the small of my back. Like a giant redwood this 6’3 Statute of Liberty crashed face first onto the floor. The back stage attendants, both petite ladies, managed to grab an arm each and pull me back up to a standing position just in time to stagger out onto the stage. I wish that I could blame all of my falls on chain smoking, international, glamazon, haters. But the sad truth of the matter is that all of my clothing should be made of bubble wrap as I am quite possibly the most accident prone person on earth.

One night, while in college, I was at a friend’s house getting ready to go out when she asked me to position her full-length mirror between the two of us. As I did so it lightly grazed over the top of my right leg. I felt no pain but watched the area above my knee open up as if it had been unzipped. That night, I received five stitches and large scar compliments of Dr. Poesy at DCH hospital and no longer believed you had to break a mirror to get seven years of bad luck.  In Dr. Poesy's defense, my friend said that I was loopy (no doubt from the shot they gave me upon arrival) and kept telling him that he looked just like Richard Dreyfus and that we should get married. Apparently he stitched me up in record breaking time and fled the room.

But over the years gravity seems to have been the hardest on me. I could not tell you the number of times I have fallen over while simply walking. Once on the way to a football game I was walking and talking to a friend when suddenly I face-planted into the parking lot. I have fallen in bathrooms more times than I would care to remember; one spill left me with a black eye and another with a head contusion. I have fallen out of doors, out of cars, off of porches and stages. No surface is safe.

 In 2011, I was invited to co-host the Mrs. America Preliminary Competition. I strolled onto the stage and immediately slipped on nothing. Fortunately I did not fall but instead caught myself in what looked like a surfer’s squat with both arms extended from my sides to balance myself. It was not the most flattering of poses to strike in yet another beautiful, designer gown. I am however beginning to understand why I have never been chosen as a designer’s muse…wait and also why I have never been invited back to emcee at Mrs. America. Speaking of which, the last time I was at the pageant, this time in Las Vegas, I almost fell face first off the stage as I reached down to hug someone and realized too late that I had misjudged the heaviness of my beaded gown. Gravity…..

In 2012, on the first run of the first day of vacation in Big Sky, Montana I managed to fall uphill, a feat I still cannot explain. In the process I broke my fibula and sprained my meniscus. There were multiple falls that followed that week due in part to the leg brace/snow/ice combination as well as the White Russian’s I consumed while watching everyone else ski.

In February, while walking into the courthouse, I was attacked by what appeared to be an innocent file cart. It snapped shut on my leg like a bear trap and again I found myself making a face-first descent toward the sidewalk. I later requested a copy of the surveillance video in hopes of winning big on America’s Funniest Home Videos but was denied. Fortunately, I suppose, one knee bore the brunt of the fall and although it saved my face, my knee bled profusely throughout that day. Try to imagine the confidence my sweet client must have felt as her attorney sat and picked gravel out of her tights. (We won by the way.) Four months later I still have that bruise on my knee because apparently the mark of the clumsy fades on its own timeline.

This brings us to last night. I wish I could tell you that my injury was the result of a glamorous fall that took place as I stepped out of my late grandmother’s beautiful claw-footed bathtub and into a vintage, 1950’s pin-up style, kitten-heeled, fur-topped, boudoir slipper…… but I think you know better. I stepped out of the tub without incident and was merely drying myself off when the towel brushed past a mole (this mole being a recent arrival that I was convinced was, in addition to being sneaky, cancerous) on my right side and ripped the top half of it away from my body. I ran a graceless lap around the upstairs of my house, screaming bloody murder and slinging bathwater everywhere as my dislodged mole flapped in the wind and left its own little trail of blood.  Luckily, Shawn didn’t slip when he came upstairs to render first aid.

This morning I went to see Dr. Bobo who, over the years, has patiently tolerated many of my self-diagnosed medical emergencies. Most recently he assured me that the pain in my forearms was not because I had bone cancer but most likely carpal tunnel. And, the deep bruise that still remains on my knee from that fall in February is not a “clear indication” that I suffer from leukemia, regardless of what Prevention magazine says. And today I learned that a mole being sneaky does not- in and of itself- make it more likely to be cancerous.

Provided I don’t break something between now and then I shall see the good doctor again next Friday to have my stitches removed. The pathologist’s report should be back by then and we will see which one of us was correct regarding the sneaky mole theory.