Which reminds me...

I am realizing as I get older that all those pesky little injuries I sustained when I was younger never really go away. I hurt my back 2 years ago and it still flares up. My knees and ankles too.

In 10th grade I was in the school production of "Fiddler on the Roof." I loved doing the school musicals. It always broke down into two groups; the Mormons/super Christians and the rest of us. I fell into the latter category. Which meant that I used profanity, no matter how sparingly, and snuck out for smoke breaks between rehearsals.

Anyway, I was a chorus member during this production. Just before the intermission I was in three scenes in a row. The first one, I was a woman walking around the town square. After that, I had roughly 30 seconds to change into men's clothes and paint my face white in order to play a ghost. After that I had to change into a second set of men's clothes and clean my face to play a musician in a wedding scene. This was quick change artistry. I was good, and never ever missed a cue (which is amazing because not only did I have to change after each scene, but I came in from different parts of the stage for each one.)

While prepping for the wedding scene, I was running behind. I came out from the dressing room and into the wings. It is dark backstage. The four guys who were holding the Chuppa (it was a Jewish wedding, after all) were holding it close to the ground. For those who don't know, a Chuppa is a canopy, basically a piece of cloth suspended on four poles. I tried to step over it, and at that moment, they chose to raise it up.

BOOM!!!

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It is really quiet during scene changes, btw. There is no way that everyone in the audience didn't hear me.

I had landed right on my knee. I had to get on stage immediately. I danced and laughed and sang.

And tears were pouring out of my eyes.

The next day it was so swollen I went to urgent care. I had sprained it, and I had water on the knee. Luckily it drained by itself, saving me copious amounts of yucky-ness.

The point of this story is that you think you heal from these things, but you don't. They just keep coming back, more and more as you get older. But sometimes, you get super cool scars that you can tell people about, and that makes it allllllllllll worth it. And funny stories!

Well, I think it's funny.

--E