And then I broke my nose

You know what seems like a good idea at 10 p.m.? Chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven, that's what.

And so it was that last night, I stood up from my chair and walked from the den, where I was watching USA repeats of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (Oh, Det. Goren, you are so intense, and yet so sensitive and insightful) into the kitchen, where I mixed up a quick batch of cookies and popped a pan into the oven.

I returned to L&O until I heard the oven's timer sound, at which point I returned to the kitchen and took the cookies out of the oven and set the tray on an adjacent chopping block to cool.

"I'll just watch a little more TV until the cookies are cool enough to slide off the tray..." is what I was thinking as I turned and walked back toward the den.

Maybe I was too eager to return to Det. Goren, (seriously, put on some headphones and click that one) and that's why I was walking so fast. Maybe my head was in the clouds trying to solve a crime. Maybe I'm just a tremendous dork.

Whatever the case, I tripped completely over a monstrous, homemade footstool that has been terrorizing my family since I was 7-years-old.

This stool was clearly a high school shop class project, possibly executed by one of the teenaged boys my dad used to hire to mow the lawn and sort his non-sports trading cards into decks.

Maybe one of his nerds wanted to curry a little extra favor with The Boss, and lovingly crafted this stool with four legs made from 2x2 pine and a top that is about 10"x15" and almost 2 inches thick. The damn thing weighed more than I did when it appeared in our basement TV room in 1976.

And it has been trying to kill my family ever since. I cannot tell you how many toes have been stubbed on this thing. I can't tell you how many times a child has tried to lift it and cross a room with it (the better to reach candy or stale gum from hundreds of packs of non-sports trading cards) and dropped it on her or his foot.

But despite its substantial mass, it is anything but stable. It is perfectly engineered to react like a brick wall if you approach it from the side. Yet if you are standing on top and reaching to change a light bulb or snatch a handful of powdery, pink gum shards from a cardboard box on a shelf, this stool is designed to tip as though it were a wild little (varnished) mustang.

But I wasn't thinking about the stool as I turned to rejoin my Criminal Intent, already in progress.

I hit it first with my shins - both of them. Hard. We're talking white bruises with angry red centers here. The force was great enough that I didn't just stumble over the stool; I was cantilevered swiftly (another set of red/white bruises where the tops of my shins hit the other edge of the stooltop) headlong toward the wooden kitchen floor.

My hands were somewhere. I'm sure they were. Maybe they were off watching Det. Goren drill someone in the interrogation box. (Ouch.)

But they were not breaking my fall. My nose did that honor.

My shins hit the stool and my nose hit the floor. And profanity exploded from my mouth.

By the time my Hot Shot Husband darted into the kitchen, there was an expanding puddle of blood under my general head area. Once he determined that the blood was from my nose and not from a horrible head wound, he quickly began wrapping ice cubes in a nice, white washcloth* for me to hold on my nose.

*Hint from Heloise: Always keep a few crimson red washcloths on hand for those times when you have to swab a bloody floor or pack a fresh wound.

I spent the rest of the evening on the sofa with my ice cubes on my face and a couple bags of frozen vegetables on my legs.

It's hard to say whether it's really broken. More than 24 hours later, it's still pretty painful. But I don't have the telltale black eyes that so often accompany a broken schnoz.

It's also still swollen. My nose has never been what you'd call pixielike (go ahead, scroll up and check it out. I'll wait). But now it has a distinctly rounder quality, as though it ends in a bing cherry. Or as though I were W.C. Fields' kid sister.

Comments

[jo(e)]

I am trying to feel all sympathetic, but I am laughing too hard at your great description of the whole event.

[Lila]

We need to have an early autumn bonfire on that gorgeous hill on your property and BURN THAT DAMN FOOTSTOOL. I mean...give it to Jesus!

http://etb.typepad.com/bettiebookish/2006/07/for_my_homie_er.html

And we'll invite Vincent D'Onofrio.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000352/

[Rachel]

You had the lights off right? You just missed it because L&O is so much better in the dark?

[peripateticpolarbear]

Oh. my. This will all be so much funnier to you once the swelling goes down.

[raehan]

I have one of those monstrous foot-stools, except it's from IKEA.

Hope that bing cherry on the nose is gone. Ouch. Is it better?

[an backay]

Is "baking cookies" now your code for "getting stank-faced drunk"? Heh.