Falling Down and Other Old Person Behaviors

Yesterday, I left the apartment to take out the trash and realized as soon as the door slammed shut behind me that I forgot to turn the bolt. I, of course, had no keys. This is not the first time that I have done the exact same thing, which got me thinking about myself much like one of those mindless old people who continues to make the same mistake over and over, no matter how many times the same unfortunate consequences come about. I was not just locked out of the apartment though, I was locked out without a cell phone or the knowledge of neither of my roommates' phone numbers, and I was dressed in shorts, a t-shirt and I was wearing no shoes. Long story short, I wasted quite a bit of time watching the elevator go up and down, praying that the doors would open on the fourth floor, and I eventually got in about two and a half hours later.

While teaching my first period class this morning, I realized that this episode of elderly behavior wouldn't be the only one I would experience this week.

Really, there isn't much of a set-up to the story. The last thing I remember doing was walking around the room, checking up on how students were doing with an activity. Next thing I know, I am lying on the floor after having slipped and fallen on a kid's backpack, pathetically staring up at the students, who of course, we're seated in stools and thus even higher above me than they would have been in a normal classroom. If you would like to feel powerless in life, you should try this.

You are probably thinking, "That's nothing! I've tripped on the sidewalk a bunch of times!" There is quite a difference, however, between tripping on the sidewalk in front of a few strangers and having an entire classroom of seventh graders witness your entire body crash to the floor. I tried to play it cool, and get up as quickly as possible, but really, at that point, there is no playing it cool. To console myself, I tried to think of a time that something similar had happened to any teacher of mine. I quickly realized that no, in seventeen years of schooling, I have never seen a teacher fall on her ass in the classroom.

As soon as I got up, the kids were waiting for any sign that indicated it was okay for them to laugh; and I told them frankly, "It's fine, you can laugh...It was funny." They, of course, wasted no time taking my suggestion.

My only consolation was when the kids told me afterward, "It would have been funnier if it happened to another teacher." I took this as a compliment to my nimble recovery.