From the clumsy files

This entry is over a year old, extracted from my regular journal, because it's much more interesting than I can be today. Plus, you get to see how stupid and clumsy I am. That's always fun!

I have a problem with slamming parts of my body in the car door. Only once have I slammed my finger in the door, thank God. Luckily, I was driving our 1970 Ford pick-up truck at the time, and the gap between the door and the truck was pretty big. Unluckily, I had witnesses. They were kind enough to pretend not to notice as I tried to disguise the fact I'd slammed my finger in the door while opening the door again for no other reason. My finger didn't feel too good, but luckily I could only lock the doors on the truck with the key, or I would have had to unlock the door to open it and extract my finger. It could happen.

Many times I've tried to shut the car door before pulling my leg or foot completely inside the vehicle. It's not that I'm in any particular hurry to leave where I am. When I'm late, somehow I manage to be more graceful. It's when I'm with friends or lost inside my own head that I lose all sense of coordination.

The worst thing I've done is shut the door on my head. Scraping the side of my head on the door or the car while getting in comes a close second, but that's a little easier to pull off like nothing happened. Shutting your head in the door just looks stupid. Of course, the door can't actually shut with my oversized head in the jamb, and that's a very good thing, or I'd be in big trouble. I don't know how I'd be able to think clearly enough to open the door back up while my brain is squeezed in two like one of those wavy balloons.

I don't often shut my head in the door. I think it's only happened three times. I've gotten a little more careful, because it hurts like hell. I'm usually the driver when I do it too, so I have to sit and let my head quit pulsating before trying to navigate in traffic. Sometimes I have close calls where I get my hair stuck in the door, and that tells me I better pay better attention or I'll have another head slamming incident.

No one can tell me I don't learn from my mistakes. I've taken to holding onto the door handle as I get in and sitting down in the seat before shutting the door. It might make me more vulnerable to a carjacker, but I wonder if being pulled out of the car would hurt less than slamming my head in the door. Right now, I think so. I always have my trusty Club to beat off any attackers just like another woman did. She had the guy begging to stop beating him. I wish more attacks went that way.

My whole reason for starting this discussion of slamming body parts in car doors was because of a trip to the store a couple days ago. For once, I didn't slam my own head in the car door. The wind did it. Had I been taking my usual precautions of holding onto the door handle while getting in the car, I wouldn't have had that problem, but my hands were full of goods. I have learned another valuable lesson from that. Put your stuff in the car, then get in.

This head-slamming incident was particularly painful. The wind was gusting pretty badly, and the door smacked me in the side of the head, right on the ear. I don't know if this is a particularly sensitive area of the skull, but I really thought I was going to pass out. I managed to sit in the seat and forced myself to remove the Club, hoping the girls in the car across from me were just doing the usual teenage giggling and hadn't watched my unfortunate accident. I tried my best to be normal. Like it's not stupid enough that I had my head in the way of the door, but I was embarrassed enough to act like nothing happened. I'll chalk that up to not being able to think clearly.

My ear still hurts. I can't lay on that side of my head at night because it hurts, and I've had a headache. As far as I can tell, my ear hasn't turned black though, so I can still wear my hair in a pony tail without people thinking J beats me. All of this to get another eight dozen plastic Easter eggs. And I still need more. It's windy again. I should wear a helmet.