Yet again I feel in the storytelling mood, and I think I'll favor my small readership with one or two.
I have learned something about being a Mormon young adult; or perhaps simply about being human in general. When first meeting each other, it seems that small groups of people often ask each other what their "most embarrassing" moments or secrets are. In order to spare myself the effort of retelling this story another fifty times before the end of my life, I think I'll just post it here and give them the link on a business card when queried.
Once upon a time, I was a junior in Governor Thomas Johnson High School (GTJHS for those who use acronyms). It housed then some 2,000 students in a crowded, old, mostly one story-high building with smooth marble-tiled floors and ugly brick turning orange from age. Due to it's age (and the presence of asbestos, most likely) there was a major undertaking started during my time there to renovate the entire facility...while we students clamored about. They would wall off hallways, re-route student traffic, and in general cause confusion and mayhem.
It was within this chaotic existence that I took AP computer science in the upstairs classroom two doors up from the stairway which runs down to the main hallway of the school, past the main offices, and on to a large lobby area. There the outside doors open on the left to the outside world, and the auditorium wall curves inward from the outside where it finishes the other half of its arc to make a complete circle. None of this is important.
You see, (as all self-conscious, self-inconspicuous nerds), I always made sure to avoid the crowds created during the intermission between class periods. I abhorred waiting behind a plodding slouch-pants wearer, and even more the idea of having to talk to someone. So, as a habit, I would always dart from one class to the next as quickly as possible. I would plan my routes carefully, sticking to one side of the hallway or the other in order to efficiently navigate the growing tide of humanity flowing out of classrooms all along the corridors.
It was on such a day that I met with one of my most embarrassing experiences. I started my race from the second door up the hall from the stairway as usual; nothing unusual. I galloped down the stairs two at a time, careful not to slip. Upon successfully reaching the bottom, I grab the railing with my hand, using it to pivot around the left-hand corner of the stairwell. At this point, I was stopped in my tracks in nothing flat.
Unwittingly, I had turned blindly, and at full speed, into a new frame post that was used to lock the double doors at the base of the stairwell. A direct blow to the head.
If only that were the end.
Fortunately, I was the only one in the hall. Checking my bearings, I got back on track, resuming course to my destination: accounting. I felt my forehead, still throbbing from the impact. After a few tender proddings, I then investigated the reason my fingers were changing color.
To make a long story a little less lengthy, I eventually found my way to the nurse's office with an inch-long split in my forehead. After half an hour, the nurse was able to contact my mother by cell-phone to ask if she could touch me. She then put a butterfly bandage on my wound and gave me a nice, big, fat bag of ice to hold on my head. It was in this condition that I walked into my accounting class with half the period left to go. As every head in the room turned to watch me walk in, my thoughts raced for the least embarrassing excuse I could offer.
"I walked into a pole."
