July 31, 2011

A girl walks into a pole...

Stop me if you've heard this one...

I love telling stories, albeit with some (okay, sometimes much) exaggeration.  I possess the crafts of creativity and imagination, and I tend to embellish just a wee bit.  One of my favorite childhood stories is about my sister.

One summer, our family went on vacation at Pike Lake in the Upper Peninsula.  I was about 10 or 11, my sister was 5 or 6.  We had our own dock on the lake in front of our cabin and Dad would set up shop at the end and fish with us.  It is my recollection that one afternoon, I was out fishing with my Dad and my sister wanted desperately to come fish with us.  I'm confident that the cabin must have been on fire or Mom was trying to feed her veal patties for dinner, because my sister came barreling down the hill toward the dock at break neck speed.

Now, I've taken an educational psychology course and have quite an extensive knowledge of fine motor skills in children.  Based on this, I would have expected my sister's small muscle movements and hand/eye coordination to be fully developed by age 5.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

It's important for you to understand the context of the situation.  The dock, being in such close proximity to the actual lake, inconveniently had water on it.  This is the only factor that potentially makes this story seem plausible.  Here is my version of the play-by-play.  I suggest that you imagine this occurring in slow motion... it's so much funnier that way. 

I vaguely remember someone yelling for my sister to slow down.  That was my cue to really focus on what was happening behind me.  As I watched, my sister proceeded to run down the hill, gaining momentum as she neared the dock.  I vividly remember that she was wearing a gray, zip up sweatshirt and jeans.  That doesn't seem relevant now, but clothes add weight...

At the last possible second, and in what appeared to be an intentional manner, my sister ran straight off the dock, falling face first into the water.  It was like she went stiff... petrified.  Maybe Draco Malfoy was hiding in the bushes and performed the "Petrificus Totalus" spell on her... who knows.  For what seemed like forever, she just laid there face down in the water, which was only about 4 inches deep.  She had to have hit the bottom, and just thinking about what that must have felt like and remembering what it looked like, makes me laugh!  Then, she stood up and immediately started bawling.  She ran straight up the hill to Mom.  Hopefully she still avoided the veal patties...

My sister had a tendency to be a natural comedian.  That's my polite way of saying that she was really good at making us laugh... at her.  The whole family went to Six Flags in Chicago about 4 years after the dock incident.  The night before we went to the park, we went to a nearby mall for dinner and shopping.  Unfortunately, the construction of this mall was such that there were poles strategically placed right in the middle of all of the hallways.  I'm not sure why these hallways needed structural reinforcement and they weren't aesthetically pleasing, so there really was no purpose for them.

As we rounded a corner, we all parted to avoid the pole in front of us but my sister pushed onward.  It's like she was being a martyr.  There was no attempt to even shield her face... probably due to the lack of hand/eye coordination.  You know that sound your frying pan makes when you drop it in the sink?  It echoed down the hallway in both directions.  Once again, she escaped any real injury.  

In closing, I want to say that while it may seem like I'm making fun of my sister, I love that girl and I only tell stories about the people that I love.  Even though this picture is not relevant to these two stories, it is so hilarious and I just had to share it with you all!  My sister used to put on my Mom's clothes, stuff toys in her chest, and walk around the house imitating her.  Just another example of why I love that girl!

1 comment:

  1. Actually, the dock incident occurred just after we arrived at the cabin. Your father had put the boat into the water, likely with your assistance, while your sister & I pulled the pickup back up to park. My recollection was that she was so excited, maybe stiff from a long drive from the Mackinac Bridge with nary a pit stop (that's men for ya!), and she missed completely missed the dock with her feet. And, the water was much deeper than 4 inches; more like a foot to a foot-and-a-half.

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