The post about the work being done on the stairs reminded me of this story.
I don’t think I was yet 40 when this happened so it was probably about 1999. We were all at Rebecca’s parents. Their home is something over 100-years old and has a nice, big, sturdy staircase.
From the first floor the stairs go up a few steps to a fair-sized landing. They then turn left and continue up to the second floor for about ten steps.
I had just come out of the bathroom and had wet hands from having washed them. As I approached the steps to go down I put my hand out to the rail and somehow slipped. I got enough of my hand on the banister that as I started my head-first fall down the stairs I sort of spun around so that I was on my back.
You know how when traumatic things happen they always seem to happen in slow motion? I was in a VW that turned over in a ditch once and it happened in slow-mo, and I’ve heard other people say the same thing.
Anyway, as I was going down the steps on my back I noticed it was happening in real-time, so I knew I was going to be okay.
Another thing I noticed: Sometimes in Westerns when a guy is falling down the steps he’ll hit the first landing, make the 90-degree turn and fall down the second set of steps to the bottom landing. As I was falling down the steps on my back I never thought for a minute that I was going to continue down the lower set of steps. I was pretty sure I was going to stop on the first landing. Certainly I’d go no further than the wall at the back of the landing.
I remember thinking, “Stay calm. This will be over in a second.”
And it was.
The fall sounded something like this: booom-bedy-boom-booom-bedy-boom-booom-bedy-boom-booom-bedy-boom. Aahhhhh.
The “aahhh” was Rebecca screaming from the kitchen. I made a very manly no-noise-at-all sound on my trip down the steps.
(hand over mouth cause i certainly would never laugh at someone in a potentially painful situation) awww…i bet that was scary (hand over mouth again, because i’d certainly never allow a giggle to be heard when thinking about a strangers misfortune)
Maybe you should get a ranch, 1 story.
In the westerns, when they get shot and fall down the stairs, they always have that frozen pause before they go.
Either the bullet has sucked the lifeforce from their bodies, or they’re contemplating just how to fall down the stairs in a manly way.