I walked into a door last night. An open door. And I was sotally tober at the time, too. Seriously, I’m just a big fat klutz.
I started to bruise almost immediately. You know those god-awful bruises that start off kind of light green and quickly turn that angry blue-purple colour? The ones that cause the little hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end with just a slight brushing of fabric? The ones where the skin around them get kind of tight and hot? I’ve got two of them, one on my left knee and the other on my left forearm, and they hurt. Really fucking bad. I’m not surprised, though. I knew as soon as I took that punkass door out I’d wind up with disgusting bruises. I’m quite fair and I bruise very easily – I’m the girl who wears jeans in the middle of a heat wave so the general public won’t loose their lunch after catching a glimpse of my pasty, bruised legs.
This kind of thing happens to me quite often but The Granddaddy of All Bruises was the one on my ass that was as big as my hand and prevented me from sitting or driving or working for over a week.
In between my first and second year of college I went home to live with my mom and work for the summer. After six and a half years I’d finally given The Golden Arches the ol’ heave-ho and had landed an equally lucrative position at another fast food joint in the food court at the mall, a job that I hated with every fibre of my being. The owners were assholes who treated their workers like dog shit and although I desperately wanted to quit I needed to save as much money as I could – three of my friends and I had signed a year lease on a townhouse for our second years of college and the rent wasn’t cheap.
After one particularly grueling shift I went home thinking I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was miserable and pissed off that the money tree I’d planted in the backyard when I was six hadn’t grown up sprouting greenbacks. I was in my room changing out of my grease-spattered uniform when my mom popped her head in the door and asked how my day had been.
I promptly burst into tears and sobbed all over her shoulder about how much I hated my job and how badly I wanted to quit. After I’d calmed down she put her arm around me and told me that no job was worth me feeling the way I did and I had her blessing if I wanted to throw in the towel. I was worried about the financial aspect of quitting so we headed downstairs to make a pot of tea and crunch numbers at the dining room table. I was on the second stair when I fell flat on my ass and quickly thumped down the remaining hard, wooden stairs one by one. My ego was more wounded than my body, or so I thought…by the time I went to bed that night a large bluish mark was already forming on my right butt cheek and the next morning it was a considerably larger and more painful black and red welt. I couldn’t sit on it or stand for too long without it starting to throb down my leg and wearing underwear was out of the question.
I asked my mom to take a look at it because I was supposed to work the next day and was considering getting a doctor’s note so I wouldn’t have to. I stood in her bedroom and carefully pulled down my pants to expose the monstrosity that had formed on my ass and she clasped her hand over her mouth and agreed that seeing a doctor was a good idea.
The secretary at the walk-in clinic swiped my health card, confirmed my address and family physician and then asked what was wrong. I leaned through the glass partition and said in a very low voice that I had an extremely painful bruise on my rear end that I thought might prevent me from working the next day. She laughed out loud, wrote “bruise” on my chart and told me to take a seat. “It’ll be a while,” she said, which read Take your lowest common denominator ass bruise and sit down, girl.
I leaned against the wall until my name was called and I was ushered into a stark, white examining room. I leaned against the wall in there until the doctor came in: a short, stocky man with graying hair and the bushiest eyebrows I’d ever seen. He glanced at my chart and peered at me over his glasses. He gestured toward a chair. “Sit down,” he said gruffly.
I blushed. “I can’t,” I said.
“Why not?” he demanded.
"Well, see, I have this bruise, and it really hurts. I don’t think I’ll be able to go to work tomorrow and I need a note for my employer,” I said.
He glared at me. “You have a bruise.”
“Yes. I know it sounds silly, but it really hurts…”
“A bruise.” He spit the word out like a loogie.
I sighed. “Yes.”
“Where is this bruise that hurts so bad?”
I blushed some more. “Um…it’s on my rear end,” I said quietly.
“And you think you won’t be able to work because of this bruise?” Me and my bruised ass were clearly wasting his time.
“I really didn’t think it would hurt this much, but it does. I just want one day off, because when I stand for a while my whole leg starts to hurt,” I explained pathetically.
He gave an exasperated sigh and motioned for me to drop trou. “Let me see this bruise.”
I slowly turned around, inched my sweatpants over the mass and mooned him. He sucked his breath and made a sort of strangling sound in his throat. I quickly pulled my pants up and turned around, too embarrassed to look him in the eye.
“Young lady,” he said, taking his prescription pad out of his pocket. “That is no bruise. That is a hematoma.” He scribbled something down, tore off the paper and handed it to me. “Good luck,” he muttered as he briskly walked past me and out the door.
I looked down at the paper and was surprised to see he hadn’t given me a day off like I’d asked. He’d given me seven instead.
Seven days off for an ass bruise. BOOYA!
*************
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33 Comments, Comment or Ping
note to self—slamming ass against stair WILL be worth it.
ha ha ha.
hope you have a good weekend & your bruises on your arm & leg heal well!
xox ♥
December 15th, 2006
Ow. What did you do for seven days if you couldn’t even sit down on it?? I would’ve asked for seven days of valium. ;)
December 15th, 2006
My husband built for me a spectacular and monstrously huge deck this summer. He’s such a doll. But alas, a supersized deck requires a supersized budget. After we reached 14000 smackers on that deck, we ran out of cash. Go figure! Any hoo, the deck is finished, minus the handrails. No biggie, we will get them in the spring. Right?
Three days ago, I was packing my eight month old nephew out to my car (I babysit him every day) and I slipped on the steps. Every instinct was to save the baby.
I did. But I landed on my hip/ass.
My butt cheek swelled up and is now turning that lovely bluey purple colour. And it too is a hematoma.
But my sister says I still have to babysit. No doctor’s note for me…
And I’m getting that handrail a.s.a.p. My bottom depends on it.
December 15th, 2006
Ooooo, I understand hematomas – YOUCH!
Several years ago we ripped up the front steps to put in a huge porch. And yes, I promptly opened the front door and dropped into the foundation. Ass and thigh bruises. They were so bad, I couldn’t do much but lie on my belly with pillows under my legs. But I was too mortified to go to the doctor and explain my blonde moment, so I just lay around and let KAATN tell me what colors it was turning. At one point we thought about calling a SWAT paramedic buddy to assess my ass but KAATN wasn’t sure the injury was substantial enough to require gawking by someone we knew. Took weeks to heal – weeks.
Anyway, I recently (like two days ago) shoulder-slammed the door frame and bruised like old fruit. Hope you feel better – I prefer the yellowish phase myself :-)
December 15th, 2006
Okay, laughing at your bruised ass may not be entirely appropriate, but from one klutzy girl to another, that’s a great story! (Myself, I just about knocked myself on my ass today in the mall full of lunchtime Christmas shoppers when my attention got diverted at just the wrong minute and I walked smack into the plate glass window at GAP instead of the opening a mere foot to my left. I hit the glass hard enough to bounce off and make a clanging noise that made at least a dozen people stop and stare. With my head.)
December 15th, 2006
OWWWWWW! Did you just lie in bed on your stomach for a week?! Yikes. My butt cheek is aching in sympathy because me? I’m that clumsy, too.
December 15th, 2006
Oh good lord chickie….((((your ass))))
God you and I, what a pair, eh? I thought I was the world’s easiest bruiser, I have met my match I see. *snort*
December 15th, 2006
LOL! I loved how he sucked in his breath. :) Funny post.
I had a huge booboo like this after my car accident. It was on my thigh, and it was as big as my whole thigh. I think someone’s head hit it. It didn’t go away for over a year! I’m not kidding. A year later it was still that sick yellow color, although not as big.
:)
December 15th, 2006
I had a fairly large bruise on my ass once. It was deserved though. I was in a play for the deaf and blind school. One of my scenes involved me slipping on a can and pretending to fall on my ass. Only, I didn’t know how to pretend that. So I did it for real… 28 times. I couldn’t walk the next week.
December 15th, 2006
Ouch! I’m glad he gave you the time off.
I bruise easily, too. I hate it!
December 15th, 2006
Ok….don’t hate me, but this post was f-ing hilarious, girl! Oh my God!
Did you take any pictures?
December 15th, 2006
Oh bubbie – I’m equal parts sorry, and jealous of your time off. Meanwhile, to this day if my mom looks at me with even a tad of sympathy the waterworks start. What’s that about?
December 15th, 2006
Owwwwwwwwww. Glad the embarrassment of mooning the doc was worth it!
December 15th, 2006
You know we’ll be asking to see evidence of how well that healed if you ever show up at a TO night. (okay, I joke, but you may find yourself the butt of a few more jokes, so get used to it. heh heh)
December 16th, 2006
man that doctor sounds like an assbag.
December 16th, 2006
Your poor butt! Give it a sweet little pat for me. :)
December 16th, 2006
seriously? wow.
I don’t bruise at all. Even though I’m fair (I wear jeans in the summer just to avoid blinding people. Yeah. That fair.)
I think I’d rather be able to bruise, though. My brother could practically break my leg and I would get NO SYMPATHY simply because there would be nothing to show for it.
December 16th, 2006
I walk into doors pretty regularly but never with much damage. I just smack my shoulder off the door and bounce.
But my brother got some awful looking bruises when he fell carrying his son down a few stairs at the pool. He saved the baby but nearly destroyed himself.
December 16th, 2006
Oh. My. God.
I am the world’s biggest klutz so this was a good public service announcement for me to read Mama T.
December 16th, 2006
Eek. My ass still gets sore when I think about a bruise I got on my ass as a kid. We were getting off the bus to go to the outdoor ed centre and the driver pulled off to the side of the road to unload us, and I managed to fall off the bottom stair of the bus, onto a patch of ice on the ground. My mum is still convinced my tailbone must have broken.
Also? I have scar tissue that makes my ankle a permanent cankle after falling down the stairs at the court house in Windsor. It looks even sexier when you take into account the fact my legs are as white as chicken legs.
December 16th, 2006
Yeeouch!
I’m a total clutz too. I slammed my knee so hard with the car door the other day that I couldn’t walk.
December 16th, 2006
does it come w/ a seven day supply of martinis?
don’t you love it when the doc validates you? i sure as hell love that.
December 16th, 2006
Ouuuuuch!
December 16th, 2006
Ow, ow, OW! I’m also a klutz.
I love your stories, by the way. I missed them! Even the ones about crappy times.
December 16th, 2006
ass bruises are 2007’s black
December 17th, 2006
When I was a freshman in college I fell in the shower while shaving and landed on a giant shampoo bottle. I had a bruise on my ass the size of a softball that lasted for weeks. This is just one in a long line of self-induced and accidental injuries…my dad didn’t nickname me “grace” for nothing.
December 17th, 2006
I know y’all are waiting for me to tell my ass bruise story.
I was carrying a package, on my way to the CHIROPRACTOR for treatment of my screwed up back, when I turned my ankle on some cobblestones near the American Embassy in Brussels and ricocheted off a few vertical surfaces before hitting the sidewalk. My ass caught the concrete corner of a barrier, my head caught the iron fence. Pretty. I didn’t have a car, had to limp to the chiropractor’s, then back to the Metro, missed my bus and had to limp to another bus station, all while carrying the stupid package and a bag of groceries.
December 17th, 2006
I’m so sympathetic! That bruise sounds like the one I had when I fell down the stairs a couple of months ago! I bounced down several steps hard and then had this HUGE MONSTROUS bruise that was definitely a hematoma. I could barely walk!
I hope your bruises heal quickly and without fanfare.
December 18th, 2006
Ouch! I did something like this once – slipped on a friend’s wet floor (tiled) and landed sideways on my butt/upper thigh. Just lovely. And painful.
The funny part? A few days later I was trying something on at a local shop with my then-boyfriend, all 6′4″ of him, and a woman saw this massive ‘bruise’ and started giving my boyfriend the nastiest looks, like he was the one that gave it to me!
December 18th, 2006
I bruise something fierce, and yet I am the one in my family who insists on doing things such as “soccer” and “mtn biking” and “being clumsy”. My sister, a nurse, says the medical term for the condition is “dumb platelets” or “lazy platelets” or some such, which kind of hurts my (and my platelets) feelings.
I did the same fall on wooden stairs and I didn’t know that I probably had a hematoma. I just thought some of my bruise were really really bad. Wow, a hematoma, that sounds much legit.
Oh, and I just went to Insuance Prom 2006 and I stayed away frm soccer so I could let me legs heal and I would look purty. I took a pedicab (bike) to the prom (couldn’t get a cab) and FELL on top of the carriage attached to the bike, bruising my shin and thigh. I don’t know why I even bother.
December 19th, 2006
I fell down the stairs at home in January 08. I have a hugh hematoma on my butt. How long does it take for it to go away?
June 25th, 2008
I have had a hematoma on my right butt cheek for well over a year from a fall down wood stairs wearing cashmere socks. It is damaging to the self-esteem and it is HUGE. It hasn’t shrunk much. I hope I don’ t have this for life. ;(
July 1st, 2009
Ooooh I got a *huge* hematoma in August of ‘06, from falling on a fence(lets not discuss the logistics involved in that act MmmK?) It was bad enough that it actually ruptured and required surgery to repair the damage it did. I still bear scars to this day of that fateful accident. So I really do feel your pain.
November 19th, 2009
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