Any Body in the Road Gets Knocked Over

It's become common knowledge within my family that I am, essentially, the black sheep of the family, so to speak.

And that doesn't mean what you think it means. Most of my family still talk to me (when they are in good moods that is - some members of my family and I have a love-hate relationship. We love to hate each other and hate to love each other quite often - I wish this wasn't the case and have tried to remedy on more occasions than I can count but, sadly, have slowed down in my efforts. Not very christian but something I will continue to work on until the day I die) and, now that I'm "all growed up" I get along better with alot more of my cousins than I did when we were younger. It probably has alot to do with the fact that aside from maybe a half dozen of my cousins, the remainder of my cousins are all at least 10 years older than me. Quite a large age gap but I am very lucky to be able to say that at least one of them is like my older sister now. She's great for advice, always listens when I want to have a whinge and, above all else, has a deep love of all things romantic, BBC and such. Love ya K!

Anyway, I digress. I'm not a traditional black sheep. I'm a literal black sheep. That is, I am totally, utterly and completely accident prone and usually covered in bruises. If there is anything to run into, trip over, cut yourself on I am the first one there.

The tales of my misfortunes have become legend in our household especially. A week doesn't go by when you hear the echo of an "OW" drift from some corner of the house. Nobody bothers to ask who it was and what happened unless it was a particularly loud ow, a swear word was uttered or I enter the room holding a body part and looking for sympathy.

So, for those counting along at home, here is the current approximately tally of the most accident prone person you will ever (and do I mean EVER) encounter in your entire life.

10 - The number of toes broken
2 - The number of times each toe has been broken
1 - Foot broken on my last overseas holiday
1 - Knee that landed upon a letter opener and went straight through (excellent for grossing out the ungrossable mother!!!)
10 - Fingers and thumbs that have been broken or fractured
2 - The number of times each finger and thumb been broken or fractured
1 - The number of times I have fallen off the top of the back stairs and landed on the ground below (off the first story and over the balcony no less)
2 - The number of times I have stepped on either broken glass or oyster shells at the beach and ripped the bottom of my foot open
1 - The number of times I fell into the pool and landed on the edge on my back
1 - The number of times I slipped and fell down the internal stairs landing on my back
6 - The number of times I have smacked my elbows so hard against something that I ripped them open (and no, it really isn't funny when you do that to your funny bone)
2 - The number of times I have split my head open

More times than I can count - bruises on smacked heads, legs, thighs, toes, knee caps, arms, hands, elbows, hips and ankles against any surface I can find.


And if you think that is bad, I have serious trouble walking a straight line. God help me if the police asked me to walk a straight line for a sobriety test. No officer, I'm not drunk just really unbalanced!!!!!

Thanks to the girls at work for figuring out why I cannot walk straight - apparently it has something to do with depth perception. Yes - insert obvious joke here!!! Explains why I needed glasses so badly though (the fact that wearing glasses hasn't helped doesn't).