Experience: we Live and Learn
... some of us the hard way.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned came from personal experience:
If you have bare wooden stairs in your house, never go down them wearing cotton socks. Either carpet the steps, wear rubber soled shoes, or go barefoot for traction.
Wait, here’s the lesson I learned:
When our family lived in Bedford, New Hampshire, we had a unique house. It was very country, with wide plank pine floors throughout, a beautiful curved staircase, pocket doors, and all the ceilings were shiplap pine.
Up until that house, I had never seen all wood ceilings before, only those that were painted white.
The morning I gained my ‘experience’, I had just changed the linens on all the beds and I wanted to get a load of laundry going before I had to leave for an important appointment.
I showered, finished dressing and was ready to leave except for my shoes, which were downstairs where I took them off by the front door. I hurriedly gathered up a few last minute items in the laundry basket for the washing machine in the basement.
Then, holding the laundry basket by the handle on either side, I headed for the stairs. I didn’t realize yet how slippery the combination of wooden stairs and cotton socks were going to be.
My foot slipped on one of the first two steps and down I went onto my butt: ka-thunk, ka-thunk, as I headed toward the curve in the staircase.
Amid my precarious descent, I remember wondering, (of all things), whether fate planned to change my trajectory through the curve in the staircase, but I needn’t have worried. My sheer momentum butt bounced me down the stairs, right on through the curve and I stayed on course … ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk ...
I can’t say I hurt much more than my elbows on a few ka-thunks, but my pride was definitely compromised. That’s the way I learned you do not wear cotton socks on bare wooden steps. Ever.
But the most demoralizing part came after I landed at the bottom. There I sat, butt flat on the floor, legs splayed out in front of me, and I suddenly realized I was still holding the laundry basket full of dirty clothes tightly in both hands …
We live and learn ... some of us, the hard way.
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Ha, I managed to do that on carpeted steps, although not all the way down. No lack of butt bruises! These days I am much more careful, and I often toss the laundry down over the railing so I can actually hold the railing and not a basket.
At least your head didn't go through the wall. (Laughing at myself of course (wrote about it in Old age ain't for sissies.). Seriously glad you were okay :]