My Congenital Inelegance

I'm never gonna to be fabulous. It just isn't in the cards for me. I've said this before and I'll say it again: I live in a state of nearly perpetual humiliation. When it comes to their physical manifestations, I possess all the grace and poise of a dromedary camel with four left feet and a bad case of vertigo. Right now, right this minute, you've clicked onto the blog of the living Lucy McGillicutty.

Minus the red hair and the Vivian Vance.

Despite full and not-at-all-painless awareness of my gracelessness, brief notions of spectacularity still taunt me from time to time, and even though I know that taking myself seriously even for a moment constitutes a gold-leaf engraved invitation for disaster formally encased in two envelopes, I WILL fancy myself ALL THAT on occasion. And it's those very times I inevitably suffer the most crushing revelations of my own congenital inelegance.

Take for example one lustrous fall day in 1991 when I was 23 years old and had the world on a proverbial string. Having recently landed a peach of a job writing and publishing marketing materials for a brand new, state-of-the-arts performing arts center, I was sashaying back to work that afternoon from a "power lunch" with a friend. This was an important day; I had to interview the architect of the Center for a piece I was writing to publish in the Playbill, so I'd donned a brilliant, retina-incineratingly red two-piece acetate suit with a tight little hemline just a few scandalous inches below my two very perky Parkerhouse roll buns, and a shawl collar/shoulder pad combination that in hindsight was exactly what Little Red Riding Ho would have worn had she been drafted into the NFL. I'd thoughtfully paired this ensemble with BRIGHT! WHITE! panty hose and a pair of red Payless kitten heels delicately trimmed with a single red grosgrain bow on each pointy little toe. I was carrying a red nylon briefcase emblazoned with my hip-single-girl initials. (Never mind that it held only a coffee mug, a box of paperclips, and enough tampons to dam up the mighty Mississippi and have plenty left over to build a four-person raft. I was a PRO-FESHNUL. I had to have a briefcase, didn't I?) Head held high, radiating unshakeable confidence and bold hubris (stupid, stupid hubris!), I swaggered up a steep sidewalk from my brand new gold Honda Civic hatchback to my very own office (broom closet!) where I would inevitably sit down at my desk to craft yet another spellbinding brochure sure to deliver hoardes of new patrons to the windows of the Center's box office demanding immediate purchase of front row center tickets so they could see them A SHOW, GALLDERNIT!

The Center was still so brand new that at any given moment of any given weekday you could turn your eyes roofward and see a virtual swarm of construction workers looking back at you. With a great deal of interest. On this particular day, as I strode toward the entrance of the administrative offices, a goodly contingent of the construction gang sat on the edge of the roof right above the very door I sought, steel-toed boots pendulating, elbows shoring up shoulders shoring up hardhats, all pointed in my direction. As I approached, a hush fell over the group. A few low whistles and catcalls. I took it all in stride as my due for being such a specimen of brilliance. And then.

I tripped.

Actually, I tripped doesn't remotely do justice to what really transpired. What really happened was I left the entire front half of one lovely bow-kissed red pump-clad foot stuffed under a frighteningly large and muddy piece of plywood while the rest of me whipped forward and simultaneously downward, not unlike a very high and mighty little red sack of potatoes being shot out of a high-powered cannon to which it is also very unfortunately and very irrevocably attached. Down I went, one skinny white leg behind me, the other flailing about wildly seeking some sort of purchase. The briefcase, jettisoned from my grasping hands, landed open-zippered and gaping, at which point it hastened to eject all of its contents immediately onto the pavement for all to peruse and speculate over. Oh, but there was probably little immediate perusal because at the moment of ejection, the sound of ripping red acetate demanded that all eyes remain on my form, now sprawled prone and awkward on a heap of muddy plywood - all appendages arranged in such a way that I could feel both the breath of a cool breeze and the breath of warm scrutiny on the Parkerhouse Girls. Silence fell over the city. I lay still, listening. Waiting to PLEASE for the LOVE OF GOD, be sucked spontaneously into the sidewalk.

From above me, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... Ma'am? (pause) You okay?"

"Oh-yes-I'm-fine-really-nothing-to-see-here-thank-you-sirs!"

"Nasty down 'ere. Gotta watch yer step!"

Slowly I wrested myself out of the mud and pried my wayward pump out from under the offending plywood, quickly collected the scattered and humiliating contents of my briefcase, then hobbled shredded-suited and bloody-kneed into the office suite to tend to my wounds and regain what was left of my composure. Forty-five minutes later, I stood before the architect, who was sorry he was running late.

He had just finished up a highly entertaining lunch on the roof with the construction team.

Sigh.

If you're inclined to stand with me in my public mortification, leave a link to your post about an embarrassing moment in the comments below.