It just doesn't look nice when a lady falls from her bar stool. I may even venture to say there's a definite stigma attached.
Wait. As Julie Andrews might say, let's start at the very beginning...
This past Friday the thirteenth, I went out for drinks with a work friend to celebrate her last day at the company. We were having the nicest time chatting when two guys suddenly approached our table. The shorter of the two immediately turned to me and declared, "I'm supposed to talk to you because my friend likes your friend." (Gee. Thanks!)
"Oh!" I exclaimed, "Does that make you the wingman?!"
It wasn't long before Wingman would venture to inquire, "If you don't mind my asking, how old are you?"
"I'm seventy-five. But I keep myself active."
"No, really? How old are you? You seem pretty youthful...," he slurred.
"How old are YOU? Fourteen?"
These clowns were becoming tiresome. After telling Wingman I was happily married and old enough to be his mother, I hoped he'd go away.
Some visual detail, if I may: It turns out Wingman was twenty-five. At the risk of sounding catty, I would not describe him as a "looker". For starters, his hair was styled in the standard, rather unfortunate way many males tend to wear their hair in Massachusetts. (Shall I categorize it as a Brutus gone wrong?) If you're not familiar with the hairstyle I speak of, try to picture someone who's accidentally shaved his head and then let his hair grow out, resulting in teeny tiny man bangs that he then combs forward over his hair line. (Except, of course, this is no accident. Some boys in Massachusetts apparently pay someone to do this.)
His clothing style was just as distasteful: picture a corporate, tapered leg wearing nincompoop. (And he's asking how old I am?)
Not that I'm bitter. Not that this jackass wasn't so intoxicated that a few moments later he wouldn't somehow put his weight upon the back of my tall pub chair and accidentally yank it backwards, taking me along with it. The next thing I knew the side of my head hit the floor with a sickening thud.
What the??!! The bartender was instantly at our side asking if I'd like him to call an ambulance. At that point I was more mortified than anything so I laughed it off and said I was fine. All smiles. Like I do.
"I didn't knock her chair over!!" Wingman kept repeating, by way of responding to my friend's accusing glare. Upon reflection, we were certain he hadn't done it on purpose, and yet...
I am bruised. I am achy. And it kind of hurts to brush my hair.
Adrenalin and pinot grigio initially made me regard this whole fiasco as rather hilarious. Somehow the story lost a bit of its humor in the light of day.
"It's a good thing I wasn't there!" was my dad's horrified reaction. (Incidentally, why is it always such a comfort when my father threatens bodily harm upon someone in my honor?)
On Sunday, at the urging of my loved ones, Hubby and I finally went over to Beth Israel Medical Center to get my noggin checked out. It didn't look nice, as you may imagine, for a young married couple to be entering the triage unit because the wife had "fallen and hit her head." Poor Hubby.
Once registered, I would be obliged to tell a slightly edited version of this tale six times to six different people. (I decided to leave out the part about being called old.) Humility. It's what's for dinner.
Knowing that a trip to the ER would run me fifty bucks, I figured I'd get my money's worth: "While I'm here...I hit my nose with a ceramic platter two weeks ago at work, would you mind just taking a quick look at it?" (It was at this point the attending asked me to undress so she could get a better look at my bruises.)
In summation, on Friday the thirteenth, four days after the full moon, an unattractive twenty-five year old
asked how old I was before knocking over my pub stool. If that
doesn't add insult to injury, I don't know what will. xoxo
