Hi my name is Hayley, and I'm a perpetual klutz.
It's the running joke that I'm constantly hurting myself in some way, shape or form. Hardly a week goes by when I don't end up running into something and scoring a huge bruise or cutting myself in some ridiculous fashion. It's not that I'm not careful, it's that for some reason I have this bad luck of constantly hurting myself. Some friends of mine have started saying "Don't pull a Hayley" or "I pulled a Hayley last night" which I'm totally fine with. I've had to accept that this is my fate and I've begun to embrace it with a humorous outlook. Here are some of my top failure moments. In humorous detail.
1. When I was in fourth grade I broke my tail bone. Who does that? Me. I was playing at recess and I gracefully fell from the end of the zipline-like playground equipment. A friend had pushed me across a little too hard, and I flew off when I reached the end and landed five feet out on my tailbone. It was a very awkward nurse's office visit as she examined my tailbone to decide if I needed to go to the doctor. She concluded that it was in fact broken but that a doctor's visit wouldn't help much so an ice pack in my pants for the remainder of the day (thank goodness this was the end of the school day) was in order.
2. Just last year I had the pleasure of attempting to ski for the first and last time. In my head I was thinking "If I hurt myself, surely I'll break an arm or a leg" so I didn't think about wearing a helmet. My friends said that they weren't going to wear one so I decided that of course, peer pressure was strong enough to say no to the helmet. That wasn't my brightest moment. I rocked the bunny hill. Like I pizza sliced the shit out of it. I was on a roll. I was in line to get on the ski lift and just fell. No reason. Just lost my balance. A nice lady helped me up and I got on the ski lift. As I'm going up this ski lift it hits me. I don't know how people get off this contraption. So I looked at the sign that said how to get off and still managed to fail. Instead of going forward, I went backward –– down to the ground and smashed my head into the ice. I take pride now in being the only one on the ski trip to get to ride on the snowmobile, but I was also the only one that had to go to the Emergency Room and the only one who has a Neurologist who has to check out her brain post-concussion, the only one who had to go through speech and physical therapy to get their mojo back and alas, the only one who really actually managed to hurt themselves. Good times.
3. I worked on campus during the summer of 2015 when offices were in transition with the new student center. The office I work in was relocated to Knudsen Hall (where I lived as a Freshman. It was weird working there) and I was super pumped one day to go get some mail that my brother had sent me when he was in basic training. I rushed out the side door down a set of concrete stairs and I'm not sure what happened next, but I was sliding down the steps on my legs and got the nastiest scrapes on my legs. I rushed to get my letter from Campus Services with blood running down my legs (that's how excited I was to hear from my brother btw he's never that excited to hear from me). I walked into the office and looked like I came from a murder scene. I acted very nonchalant about the whole situation and found myself running back to my office to bandage myself up. There were many jokes made. I still have scars.
There are so many more stories I could tell such as the time that I sliced my hand while cutting an avocado or the many melon-sized bruises that I have had the pleasure of finding across my body from walking into things or falling. Life as a perpetual klutz is always an adventure. You never know what you will find yourself doing or how you will hurt yourself next. Many people suggest that you live in a bubble and some days, you agree and begin doing some online searches to procure yourself a bubble. Here's to all of the klutzes out there.
