Here’s to our Accident-Prone Friends

Those who are accidents waiting to happen

“You can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Janice’s siblings grinned and used that taunt several times in her growing-up years. And given her track record of accidents, those remarks were almost prophetic.

The trend started when the child was three years old.  Playing on a hay wagon with her older siblings one day, she fell off, bumped her head and fell unconscious. Her siblings, small children themselves, ran into the house yelling, “Mother! Janice is dead!”

That may explain their mother's nervous habit of gnawing her fingernails until Janice reached adulthood.

When the child was ten years old, her older brother watched her struggle to learn bike-riding skills on his boys’ model bike. She wrecked, of course, and woke up hearing him taunt, “Get up! Quit faking it!”  He should have known by this time that his sister could give classes on bizarre accident performances. and wasn't faking it.

There was the time she broke her foot falling out of a chair. Who knew that you could be sound asleep in a recliner, jump up to answer the phone, and wear a cast for most of the summer?

Then came mid-life and its challenges. Janice sported a weak knee after she stumbled while exiting a camper-trailer with a baby in her arms. Rather than risk dropping the baby, she stiffened one leg and landed upright with full weight on that leg.  During certain conditions, the knee liked to remind her of that episode.

There was the time Janice slipped while running up rain-slicked steps. She smacked her face on a pipe and endured oral surgery and dental braces for a few years.

And the grandiose episode, the one that topped them all, occurred when she walked her dog. Running to cross a residential street around the corner from their home, Janice felt her shoes skidding on loose gravel. From the waist up, her speed was approximately five miles an hour. But her legs lagged behind at about three miles per hour.

 Unable to stop the momentum, Janice woke after doing a face plant on the asphalt.  Her obedient dog ran home, dragging his leash. An observant neighbor called an ambulance and Janice later returned home later to see a nice-sized bloodstain on the street where she fell.

I have a theory that accident-prone people are that way because they are unable to multitask. Stay with me here.

Some people are hard-wired to think deeply as they experience life, and it takes a lot of energy to do two things at once. Janice’s dad, observing her aptitude for walking around deep-thinking life, used to tell her she would stumble over a line painted on the floor. While that’s a bit of an exaggeration, nothing was out of the range of possibilities.

Deep thinking is the specialty of this unique class of people. Chances are you know one or two who "fall" (pardon the pun) into this category. Actually, they may be the Einsteins who are busy discovering something as momentous as the theory of relativity.

Or if they're children, maybe they're pondering whether earthworms have backbones, or if rocks grow. If they're an adult, they may be analyzing why the car won't start. Or how to approach their boss for a raise. Oops! There they go, stepping into a hole in the ground while solving pertinent problems.

The next time you see a Janice—or a Jon-- and they appear to be frowning or scowling for no reason, they’re probably deep in thought. They may even have developed an “eleven” between their eyes due to constant squinting from deep thinking.

Give them space. And if you’re not one of their ilk, be on the alert. At any moment they may step off a curb and sprain an ankle. Or tumble off a chair while changing a light bulb. Stand by, ready to intercept.

If by contrast you are physically coordinated, thank God in heaven that you have spared your family multiple moments of anxiety. If you are fortunate enough to not be on a first-name friendship with the ER staff at the hospital--you are indeed blessed.

What about you? Are you one of those deep thinking, accident-prone people? Tell us about it in the comments section below.