**OW**

A last minute dash about the house before bed time while enjoying the end of my evening wine, ended in what can only be described as something someone flunking out of Tito Gaona's Flying Trapeze Academy would be capable of doing.

I rounded a corner and tripped over a box we had placed in a doorway earlier in the evening to prevent our old Grey-bird from going on one of his rather destructive walkabouts.

I kid you not, I launched. I felt the wind beneath my wings and in the brief moments of my solo-flight, the only thought running through my head was "don't land on the glass!" Somehow I managed to keep my right arm extended with my wine as far away as possible for the duration of my flight.

Now, had I been George Reeves, or Olga Korbut, I would have expertly tucked and rolled, not even spilling a drop as I regained my stance and went on about the business of wrapping up the evening. Regretfully, I'm neither one of those two people, and I don't know anything about doing parkour.

While my limited faculties were focused on the whereabouts of my wine glass, my face instinctively took over and prevented me from falling completely through the floor, past the crusty layers of the earth, ultimately crashing right into Hades lap. That's right, my face stopped me there on the wood floor and bravely prevented me from falling any further.

After the dust and glass shards settled, I laid there motionless on the floor quietly listening as my sluggish neurons relayed "check. i'm still here" messages from each quadrant of my body.

OWWWWWWWWW.

I couldn't recall what it was I thought I needed to do so badly once returning to my upright position.

Today as I sit here at my desk, I realize that other parts of me were also charged with the responsibility of stopping my hell-bound descent. My left shoulder, neck, and lower back totally ache. My right elbow is bruised.

The shade of blue and purple glints now below my right eye, cheek, and jaw will look great in a couple days when they have spread and faded to a nasty yellow-brown.

I think someone needs to investigate the rapid pace at which the density of objects has undoubtedly increased just within the span of my own lifetime. It's alarming really. Global warming has been occurring slowly over generations. But shit ("shit" being defined as anything you might find yourself slamming into with any amount of force) has DEFINITELY gotten much harder than it was when I was a kid.