Is it Monty Python that the phrase "over you go" comes from? I don't recall. But it aptly describes a precarious, but hilarious, scene I found myself in yesterday evening.
Earlier in the day I had gone outside to sweep the snow and ice off my very steep back steps and brush off my car from the snow left behind by the previous night's storm. Toward evening, I had to, once again, sweep off the back stairs because my friend Kathy was coming over and I didn't want her to slip on the new snow/ice accumulated on them. So, I bundled myself up and braved the blustery cold.
I began sweeping, starting at my top landing and going down the steps one-by-one. At about the third step down from the top I failed to see some ice that I had overlooked while sweeping, and when my foot fell on that step, out from under me it went. I landed on my back and began to slide. With my coat on and the stairs below me still covered lightly with snow, it was as if I were on a sled on my back. The bristles of the broom got wedged between a step and the outside wall of the building, the handle of which I clung to like a rope, and it stopped my descent briefly. Paused supine momentarily, I tried to roll myself on my right side in order to get up, thinking "Boy that could have been really bad", when I lost my grip of the broom, and continued my descent, picking up speed as I slid the rest of the way on my right side down to the very bottom of the staircase. As I came to a stop, my body flopped back down on its back and I lie there assessing just how much bodily injury I had sustained. "Nothing broken, I think", but boy did I hurt like hell.
The neighbor below me was not home. Kathy was still at work. And, the people that live in the apartment below the one she just recently moved out of (to move back in with her elderly and ailing mother) obviously didn't hear my yell during my descent. So, there I lie, with my body sore and my feelings more so for not having anyone around to see if I was okay. After wiping the tears of self-pity off my face that had quickly frozen there in the cold, I collected my aching bones into an upright position and looked at the stairs. My descent was so rapid that it cleared them entirely of snow. "Well, at least I don't have to sweep them." I promptly crawled back up the stairs and drowned my self-pity in a full glass of Pinot Grigio.
Oooh...today I am oh so sore. But in restrospect it had to be the funniest sight. Too bad I didn't have someone with me to witness the comedy unfolding as it took place. I count my blessings; it could have had a more dire outcome.
In retrospect all I can think about is Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold on the metal sled he coated with some superslick spray and went tearing down hill and across town at Mock I in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. (Ahh what a CLASSIC that movie has become!)
Have a wonderful day, All. Hope this tale brought a chuckle to you. :)
p.s. I thought the little animated, skating Santa was saying Ha Ha Ha after falling, which is why I chose it. But, I think it is Ho Ho Ho. Let's just pretend it is the former. Humor me; I'M the one that fell. ha ha ha!!!
