Word of the Day

Bathmophobia. I have it. Why? Well, since you asked....

When I was a junior at BYU many moons ago, I was walking down the stairs in the business building. For those of you familiar with that building, they go all the way from the street level at the 4th floor to the street level at the 1st floor in the middle of the building, and hundreds of people pass through them on their way from classes and apartments on that side of campus around the top of the hour, since many classes end on or around the hour. So I'm walking home one day, going down the stairs all graceful and cute-like, and as I take a step downward, somehow I miss the step, and fall forward. I try to correct myself, but feel myself about to fall on my knees, and probably slide down the stairs on my face. I grab the railing just in the nick of time and skid down the stairs on my shins. Which was so much better. I think the bruise was bone deep. The discoloration didn't completely go away for several years, and if I look closely I can still see a scar. But the pain wasn't the worst part. I've got a fairly high threshhold for pain. And in my world bruises and scars are cool, so that wasn't the worst part either.

The worst part was that at least 50 or so people around me witnessed my fall. About three guys came running up going, "are you okay? Are you okay?" My roommates told me later that I failed, because I should have swooned and weakly said no, and asked the cutest one to carry me home. Instead I limped to my feet and tried to look like I wasn't about die from the pain, and then did my best impression of a dignified hobble down the stairs, out of the building, and to my apartment, which was a five or ten minute walk away.

And then there was the time that I did a cartoon fall down some narrow carpeted stairs in an old house in Bellingham. As in I slipped off my feet into the air, and then my whole body slammed down onto the stairs and I slid bump,bump, bump, bump, bump down the stairs to the bottom. And then I was in shock. So I laughed. And then cried. And then laughed again.

So I think my bathmophobia is justified. And now you know why you might occasionally see me inching down the stairs like I justed learned how to walk.