With a 9.75 Degree of Difficulty...

... the next contestant in the "Bite the Gravel World Championship" is ...
Vicki!  * Crowd goes wild! *

I'm really good at falling over.  I can manage to turn the simple task of walking down a path into an acrobatic masterpiece that would make Cirque du Soleil green with envy.  A couple of somersaults and a half pike mid stride? Easy. I always bounce back quickly, dust myself off and keep walking (hoping that nobody noticed).  Not today. Today I stayed down.

I can trace my crappy day back to 5:20am this morning when the alarm went off.  The only things louder than the alarm at that time of the morning are the screams in my head saying "Are you out of your mind??  Go back to sleep, fool woman".  Resisting sanity, I dragged myself out of my nice warm bed.  In a moment of weakness I had agreed to play golf at 6:45am and I can't reneg on an agreement no matter how badly I wanted to.

At 6:45am it was a little chilly this morning and I was regretting not wearing long pants.  Not as much as I regretted it shortly after.

First hole:
    - Stunning drive down the fairway.
    - A few mediocre shots onto the green.
    - Spectacular 10m putt into the hole.
a good start for me and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Second hole:
    - First tee shot goes deep into bushes on the right.
    - Second (provisional) tee shot goes deep into bushes on the left.

At this point I had a choice - do I look for the ball on the left or the right?  I chose the right.  I chose poorly.

On the right side is a steep uneven gravel path full of pot holes and exposed rocks.  I tripped on one of the rocks.  Any other day this would be a small recoverable stumble.  Not today.  I got the death wobbles.  With arms (and legs) flailing I looked like pelican trying to land.  Gravity took control and I ended with a roll in the gravel.  I lay in the dirt doing a damage assessment:  Lots of things hurt and there was bloody bits.

I had a flash of a mental picture of how comical my fall must have looked, and I got the giggles.  While others were frantically rushing around calling for a medical evacuation (green keeper in a ute) and trying to make me comfortable, I was pissing myself laughing. 

I'm now sitting at home on my deck with an ice pack on my ankle and spots of Mercurochrome all over me and I'm looking for sympathy.  So far I have received the following sympathetic comments:
   "I laughed (just a little)."
   "You were due.  You haven't had a clumsy attack for a while"
and the most helpful:  "Will a bottle of red wine reduce the pain?" (damn straight it will)

Footnote:
I did manage to get the last laugh:  One of the cats was feeling a bit playful and thought attacking my ice pack would be a fun thing to do.  With my foot elevated, she attacked from below, ruptured the bag of ice and drenched herself in melted ice water. The gods of stupidity must have thought I needed another laugh.

Two belly laughs before lunch - not such a crappy day after all.