It's Amazing I'm Not Dead Yet

I fidget.

I can't sit still for two minutes unless I'm drunk or terribly ill. And even then I twitch my feet under the blankets and look around every five seconds like a driver checking his mirrors.

I'm a klutz, with all the natural grace of a newborn rhino. I can't pass a sobriety test sober. True story? I'm such a spazz that a highschool teacher once sent me to the nurse to have my inner ears tested. Like, to see if my problem was actually medical, like it could be explained or even treated. To be fair, she did the right thing. People in class were talking about me. That's because, a week before, on a class trip to Venice, I had accidentally rolled backwards off a bed. I was sitting when I fell. The next morning, I had done a sort of tumble into traffic while walking down a wet stone sidewalk. And the day after that, I tripped flamboyantly over a chain barrier in the middle of a cathedral and landed, loudly, on the floor. (In my defense, I was gaping at the ceiling and turning around slowly in circles. Anyone would have fallen over.) On the last day, the whole class went and took pictures on the Rialto Bridge, only I wasn't allowed to sit on the ledge. Fact.

Still, my walk home today was something special.

It was already dark out and I was rushing home with great purpose, barreling across Stephansplatz and thinking about nothing and narrowly missing strangers' shoulders. Then I tripped.

"Gaargh!". It was right by the side of the church, where the Fiaker line up their horses and carriages. You see, I have these boots with floppy straps that had come undone, and somehow my right foot had gotten stuck on a loop of leather on my left foot and I basically heaved myself onto my face, except at the very last moment I threw both my feet forward and sort of caught myself in this awkward two-footed stomp. I landed with a yelp and somehow managed to spook one of the horses, this little piebald mare, who totally freaked me out 'cos she freaking whinnied at me and reared a little, and she was wearing a harness and everything, so then that all clattered together, and then the second horse neighed and started hopping up and down. The driver just looked at me and shook his head.

But not for long because the horses had started to skitter into traffic and then cars were honking and people were staring. I laughed and tried to do this casual, falling-on-your-face-and-causing-a-traffic-jam-with-horses-is-totally-the-new-cleavage walk but that was pretty much an epic fail because about four seconds later one of my purse straps got caught on this fire hydrant and I did one of those things where your feet walk off without you (I hate those) and had to go back and untangle my bits.

Oh, and then I nearly got hit by a tram because my hat is too big and when it slips down I can´t see or hear properly and I sort of stepped off onto the tracks and the tram driver dinged at me and stared. Dude, even his walrus mustache was judging me.

Long story short? My accessories are totally trying to kill me.