Dec 18, 2018 3 min read

It all started when I slept through my alarm on Sunday. My inability to awaken on time caused me to miss a pre-church meeting. Then, a mishap in the basement caused me to miss church altogether.

I was still in the process of making my coffee when my son called me downstairs. He wanted me to see that one of our freezers wasn’t working. Sighing, I set down my carafe and coffee grounds and went to see what had happened.

I walked down the stairs and toward the freezer. I opened the door and discovered that the packages of meat were frosty, but not rock solid, and the light was not illuminating the inside the appliance.

I began to trace the plug toward the outlet. As I walked around the corner of the basement, it began to get dark. The light wasn’t on in that half of the basement and it really made a difference in my ability to see. I could neither see the freezer cord nor where I was going.

I tripped over who knows what and nearly broke my toe. “The who knows what” turned out to be a section of two-by-four that had fallen off my son’s train table. After I tripped over it, it flipped up behind me and clipped me in the back of the leg. I tried to hop forward, but my painful toe didn’t permit me to bear my full weight and I fell forward.

I smacked my forearm off the barrel that functions as a garbage can down there. A burning sensation immediately began spreading down through my wrist and up to my elbow. I pulled my arm back and, that being the only thing preventing my complete fall, promptly hit the floor.

After the stars spinning around my head dissipated and I could see again, I discovered that I could again see the freezer cord. I pushed myself up and followed it the rest of the way to the outlet. It had been almost completely unplugged, so I remedied that. Back around to check the freezer, and indeed, it was working.

I managed to climb the stairs back to the first floor, where I finished making my coffee before finding a seat, propping my foot and icing my arm. A few cups of coffee and milligrams of ibuprofen later, my arm felt fine. My foot is still a bit sore, but seeing as it never changed color, I’d say it’s not broken.

After a few hours of limping, I was back to nearly my usual gait. The freezer refroze the meat, and the Steelers pulled out a win although our kicker had a bit of a rough day again. Maybe he fell in his basement Sunday morning and had a bum toe, too?

Regardless, it all worked out OK. That being said, I will be sure to take time to turn on the lights if I ever have to do that again.