KLUTZ-O

This was my Dad's nickname for me growing up. Wait a minute, who am I kidding? This is still what he calls me most of the time and while not terribly endearing, it is pretty darn accurate so I can't really complain too much. I think he will enjoy this post more than anyone. I am just not terribly graceful sometimes. I do not know why but a lot of the time I'm downright out of control. Like the proverbial bull in the china shop. Don't let me within thirty feet of anything breakable. I don't mean to, but I'm constantly tripping or dropping stuff, bumping into corners and table legs, and otherwise doing goofy and uncoordinated things to either injure myself or break something.

This past weekend I had not one (cause why stop at just one?) but two classic Klutz-o Lauren experiences. You're gonna to love this...

#1 - The Time I Almost Cut My Finger Off: Ok so, Friday night I was over at the home of a friend of mine who was hosting a dinner party. I was helping her finish getting all of the food ready and my job was to make the salad. She handed me a big plastic bag of salad greens and a knife to slice into it with (mistake number one was giving me a knife in the first place). I don't know if my hands were a little damp or if it was the bag or the knife (of some combination of the three) but by golly, I managed to slice right through my index finger. Given that I have a wee bit of an aversion to blood (and by wee bit I mean I'm the biggest wimp in the eastern hemisphere) I immediately looked away and just stuck my finger under some running water in the sink. My girlfriends took charge and started playing nurse---which was a good thing because if I'd actually had to look at that gash there's no telling what I would have done. The whole time they were washing the cut and doing the direct pressure bit, I was giving myself a mental lecture. "You're 24 years old for crying out loud--put your big girl pants on and suck it up!"

Didn't work. As they began drying my hand so they could bandage it, I noticed that I couldn't really feel my feet. And it was slowly getting dark. And suddenly, the earth was spinning a lot faster than it was five minutes ago and was it me, or was it getting REALLY hot all in there all of a sudden? I stumbled/collapsed into a chair and really, I think that's about as much detail as I need to go into. You don't care to hear about the sweating and the dry heaving, right? I didn't think so.

#2 - The Time I Almost Burned Down the Church: Having made a full recovery from the finger incident the night before, I got up early Saturday morning and headed to church to help with the Crescent City Cafe, which is a ministry that serves breakfast to the homeless on Saturday mornings. I volunteered to make pancakes because well, I love making pancakes and I thought it would be a good job for me. Pancaking making went well for the most part, until right towards the end of the morning when one of the other volunteers asked if I'd mind frying a little more bacon too? Bacon you say? No problem! I love bacon! Bear in mind I am frying this bacon on a large, industrial size stove with like 19 burners all going at once. Because there was no counter top space available, I had to set my bacon plate on the burner next to the one I was using. Yes, I made sure that burner was off. Duh. What I failed to consider though, was the fact that the paper towel I put on the plate to absorb the extra bacon grease was hanging over onto the burner that I was using. Lesson learned: paper towels burn incredibly quickly when you stick them in a gas burner! Of course, the oven in that kitchen is nowhere within five miles of a sink so when I pulled the flaming paper towel off I had nothing to do with it. I stood there staring stupidly at the thing, trying to use my mind powers to douse the flames for problably 15 seconds before I realized that wasn't going to work, so I ended up dropping it onto the floor and jumping up and down until it was dead. Less fun than mind powers, but apparently more effective.

So, there you go. I hope you feel better about yourself now after reading this.