I’ve been living on the edge. I don’t mean I’ve been flying F-16s or having unprotected sex with howler monkeys or willfully not measuring ingredients when I bake a cake. I mean I’ve been nearly breaking my ankle on the edges of walkways. On purpose.
Then I do it again.
The other day Mike and I were walking down some makeshift stairs that were built into a hillside and instead of walking right down the center, like a law abiding, non-lopsided citizen, I gravitated to the edge where the wood met the mulch.
It was clear I’d made a bad choice from the very beginning. My ankle started to bend as half my foot pressed into the dirt. I righted it, just before I became one of those horses that cowboys have to shoot in those movies that make me cry. But instead of moving to the center of the stairs where it would be more safe to walk, I nearly broke my ankle five more times and was proud that I managed to save it each time.
I don’t want to be shot by teary-eyed cowboys. I swear.
After the fifth time, Mike, who was walking behind me and was no doubt dumbstruck that he had married the lamest daredevil of all time, said, “What are you doing?!”
“I don’t know!” I wailed, and shifted to the middle of the stairs. I really didn’t know. But I also knew if he hadn’t said anything I would have kept doing it. As I bopped down the center of the stairs my eyes drifted to the edge, and I longed for the devil-may-care days of my youth, two minutes ago.
Maybe this is why old ladies break hips? It isn’t that they are old; they are drawn to danger. What next? Will I start dangling my hair into whirling mixer blades? Will Mike enter a room to find me on my hands and knees trying to force my tongue into an electrical socket?
Am I the Evel Knievel of stupid?
