On flying, or not. A treatise.

So there I was, minding my own business, hanging out in the attic, when suddenly some goblins appeared and charged at me. I fought them off for a few minutes, but they surrounded me. While I was fighting six of them, my foot slipped and they shoved me down, pushing me through the ceiling below me. I caught myself and beat their asses from below, while I hung from the joist with one arm. When they ran away I lowered myself to the floor below and started patching up the drywall hole in the ceiling.

What? It could happen.

OK, here’s how it really happened. I was in the attic helping the electrician finish up the last of the wiring so we could call in and request the rough-in inspection. The attic is built of rafters instead of roof trusses, so it’s easy to move around. It’s not too terribly tall though, so you can stand, but you have to bend at a 90 degree angle and crouch-walk around the place. It’s also not floored, so you have to walk across the ceiling joists. I’ve done that a zillion times and I have decent balance, so I wasn’t concerned at all.

The electrician (Paul) realized he needed a tool and I went to go get it (I’m being his helper to save on labor costs). After a few steps, I put my front foot down on a joist it slipped back. I had already committed though, so all my weight was on it. Both legs went between the joists and I found myself hanging by my arm pits, suppressing expletives. Rather than crash to the floor below, somehow I managed to catch the joist in the chest and grab on and hang. Paul rushed over to help me and we got my shirt loose and I lowered myself to the floor beneath me.

In my mind, I was sure something had fractured, but I didn’t want to look, because if you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Right? I walked around for a few steps to see if it could support weight, and it did without pain. I realized later that since I had dropped myself on both legs with all my weight and it didn’t hurt, it couldn’t have been broken, or at least not broken enough that a doctor was going to be able to do anything.

I got an ice pack out of the freezer and tried sitting down for a bit, and tried to think happy thoughts. Apparently I caught the brunt of that fall on my right shin, because it was already very swollen and well-abraded. After a little while I was able to get up and walk around, decided it was ok, and got back to work. We were within an hour of getting the work done enough to call in the inspection. Within about an hour or so we got all the rest of it finished.

When we got home that night, my shin was swollen to the point that if it was green, I would have looked like the Incredible Hulk (but only on that leg. It would be a weird imbalance to have one Hulk leg and one normal leg, and I would walk funny, but I could probably jump pretty high from a Hulk leg. Kind of a beefy leg, instead of a beefy hand). I could probably have made a whole other shin with the extra material. I scrubbed the hell out of it in the shower and applied alcohol to make sure no infection occurs. This is the kind of thing that would have killed someone a few centuries ago, when infection set in and they didn’t have so much as an aspirin. Idiots.

Then I laid/lay/lied down on the couch (the grammar checker is going crazy with “laid,” so I’ll throw them all in for luck), with my foot elevated and an ice pack, and fell asleep. By the time I woke up, Suzanne had already gone quietly to bed – I’m sure checking under the ice pack as she walked by – and the swelling had gone down considerably. I mean CONSIDERABLY. It was a drastic change in just that short a time.

When I got up the next day, the swelling was down even a little more. It was sore, but otherwise ok.

If you’re going to fall through a ceiling from above, I highly recommend doing it my way. There are far worse things that could have happened. None of the getting caught on stray sticking-out-things, or crashing to the floor and breaking stuff. The Lord was surely looking out for me.

I’m very glad Suzanne wasn’t nearby when it happened. I wouldn’t want her to have seen me pee myself as the realization of what had just happened set in… She took good care of me last night. That’s why she’s so awesome.

All is well. Thank you all for the well wishes. Suzanne worked some today and will tell you more later, but we’re taking the night off tonight. I was complaining to her the other day that our previous rehabs didn’t feel this hard. She reminded me that one took 6 months, another took 4 months, and we lived in one for years, and all of those were similar to the scope of work we’re now trying to cram into two months so we can move in. Good point. Plus now my age begins with a 4, so that could be a contributing factor. She’s such a good wife, of course, that she would never share that last observation.