Slippery - Sunday Scribblings

As usual, I have responded to the prompt with the first thing that came to mind. It is the account of a personal experience that I have never forgotten:

I was living in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where the dark months are an absolute horror. Growing up in snow country did little to prepare me for the hibernal hell that is wintertime in the high plains. I believe a Wyoming pioneer coined the term bitter cold. I often wondered how those hearty soles survived a winter there when I had all the modern comforts and still found myself miserable. There is an added dimension to a Wyoming winter. A constant 40-mile per hour wind polishes the foot deep ice to a perfect gloss. Then comes a fresh powder snow, which conceals the treacherous glacier. I am certain you know where I am going with this.

I was parallel parked on Lincoln, which is a major artery in the City of Cheyenne. This is important because of my later impossible attempt to conceal what had happened. I was unloading some merchandise to carry in to a shop that I did business with. My hands were full and I was probably carrying more weight than I was approved for. I took one careless step and suddenly instead of being vertical and perpendicular to the sidewalk, I suddenly became completely horizontal and parallel to it. I don’t mean that my feet went out from under me. No, my feet were at the same elevation as my head. I am certain that if there was an Olympic event in which that particular maneuver was judged, I would have been awarded a 9.5 (except maybe the Russian judge). I am not sure if I completed all the compulsory moves, but I definitely nailed the degree of difficulty, though my landing may have cost me some points. I landed flat on my back, with the packages still in my arms, undamaged. Luckily my spine and the back of my head broke my fall.

The most important thing for any man who falls, prior to accessing damages, is to play it off in the event that anyone happened to witness the performance. Well, that activity was a dismal failure, as not only had it been witnessed, but also both directions of traffic had come to a complete halt. There were people running to my aid. I am sure that some believed I had fallen from the sky, like Icarus. In spite of a possible broken back, concussion, bruised kidneys, and ruptured spleen, I managed to crawl out from under my vehicle (did I mention that I actually slid under my 4X4) and jump to my feet announcing my OKness (I love to make up words), as if this happened all the time. Though I couldn't breathe and I was seeing things only cartoon characters usually see, I managed to summon as much dignity as possible and get back in my vehicle, driving off before the paramedics arrived. I eventually recovered, with minor bruising, a massive headache, and some vertebrae in new positions, but I am certain that several years later citizens of Cheyenne still talk about the worst fall they ever saw.
This is another of the many reasons I love Myrtle Beach. The only way to slip on ice here is if someone spills a frozen daiquiri. If you do happen to fall down at Myrtle Beach you have at least a 75% chance of landing on sand or a golf course. Neither would cause a 911 dispatch.