The first thing I did, of course, was look around to see if any of the neighbors had seen me. No adult wants to be seen falling down. I resisted the urge to jump up and do a gymnastics stance, with my arms in the air, in anticipation of those score cards going up.
9.8….9.5…4.2 (there’s always one bastard in the judge’s pool).

I think it’s quite funny when adults fall down, but the degree of humor is predicated on whether or not it’s me or someone else doing the falling.

Melissa turned around from raking and saw me sitting there, as though I had just inexplicably sat down–perhaps suddenly exhausted from standing about holding the little leaf blower. Then I looked up at her and said, “I fell.”

She came rushing over and checked me out, and I said, “Go unplug the leaf  before we have an electrical fire and ruin it.” She did, and came back to help me up, and inside and then ordered me to the sofa so she could apply ice packs on the offended parts while i caught up on Rachel Maddow recordings.

It made me feel old. It’s not as though I fell from the roof of the house. I just fell from the deck, one step down to the patio. I mean, TODDLERS fall down all the time, and even if they cry, they don’t really get hurt. I suspect (and hope) it has something to do with the laws of inertia, or the size of the falling object, and it’s weight (no wisecracks). Perhaps Lisa Stafford and her science-mind can WEIGH IN on this one.

With a bit more thought, I realized Newton’s first law of motion is often stated as, *An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.* I suppose I was the unbalanced force, but I acted upon myself. But then, Newton’s Second Law of motion is *all objects free fall at the same rate regardless of their mass.* So that would mean if a toddler didn’t get hurt, I shouldn’t either. I’m rationalizing myself into a very embarrassing corner, here.