unfunny

You knew it was coming. I mean, you had to know that sooner or later there was going to be a post where I shared something personal. Maybe you hoped and prayed that your intuition was wrong. Perhaps you tried to convince yourself that I had more sense than to bare my soul on here for all to see.

I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I have no sense. Ask around if you need confirmation.

And so, with that disclaimer, I’d now like to talk about the time I nearly lost my foot in a tragic bouncy-house accident.

It was a Saturday in mid-September and I was away at school in West Virginia. We’d been playing cards all night (Shanghai Rummy, as I recall), and were going a bit stir-crazy when someone suddenly had a great idea: let’s go hang out at a music festival that was going on in Wheeling.

Now we (the suggestees) were aware of no such festival, but we had faith in the supreme knowledge of the suggestor and were all eager to have some fun off campus. And since this was long before Al Gore single-handedly invented the Internet, the luxury of online fact-checking simply didn’t exist.

We, my tens of readers, were acting on pure instinct and the morning-after-effects of Iron City Light. And so it was with great enthusiasm that we crammed into my little blue Mustang and headed down the hill.

Now, just for some perspective, Wheeling was (and probably still is, I’d imagine) a mere 12 miles from the Hilltop, a short (though harrowing) drive along a twisted maze of curves that Satan himself designed, known as WV-88. So when you have eight or ten people crammed into a vehicle designed to fit four, things can get a little dicey.

And yet still, driven by the power of sheer will and determination, we finally arrived at our destination.

Except it wasn’t a music festival. It was a fair. A very low-budget fair. More of a carnival, really.

Okay, let’s just call a spade a spade: it was a family barbeque with some pinwheel decorations stuck by the curb and a guy with a boombox.

But we didn’t drive all the way down the hill to simply turn back. If there was fun to be had, we were determined to find it. And so, while walking through the neighborhood, we came upon a beautiful sight: there, in the corner of a yard in the middle of the block, was a fully-inflated bouncy house.

We took one look at that beauty and collectively decided that bounce, we must.

At this point, we strode over to the main attraction, tossed our shoes and our dignity aside, and entered puffy paradise.

We jumped gently at first, showing off our bounce prowess. Oh, we were stars. Prodigies. If there had been some kind of Olympic event involving bouncy houses, we would’ve been champions. But alas, there was no league or training, and so we’d have to settle for that day’s successful bounce-o-rama.

But alas (for a second time), disaster lurked quietly in our future.

Shortly before dusk, the high-energy boombox-driven mix-tape rocking Hall & Oates pumping atmosphere started to change as folks began returning to their homes. To return to the commoners strolling about the not-quite-a-carnival carnival, it became necessary to finally exit the bouncy house.

In my defense, I believe it necessary to explain how the bouncy house was structured. There were steps (also known as the inflated ramps of hell) that slowly moved into the bouncy house entrance. On either side of the rising and falling hell platforms were very thin sheets of metal that were designed to prevent the inflated ramps of hell from moving.

Don’t ask me how or ask me why, but as we exited the bouncy house, my left sock and foot got wedged in the space between the inflatable ramps of hell and the metal side thingy. It was trapped. And as more folks began to exit the bouncy house, the shift in weight on the ramps of hell began twisting my foot, ripping through my sock.

My toes, people, were mere seconds away from never seeing the ‘90s.

They’d never curl in fear as they watched Alien. There would be no toe-picking-up of socks from the floor. My toes, although they didn’t know it, wouldn’t survive until Y2K.

And then a friend screamed. Or maybe she laughed. Either way, she made a noise and the rest was a blur.

Children covered their faces in horror. Another friend bounced aimlessly inside as she tried to offer assistance. Finally, someone yanked my foot out of the stronghold. Laying on the cool grass surrounded by festival attendees and an off-duty nurse telling us she was an off-duty nurse, I realized that my feet were safe, my toes intact.

My future Olympic career, however, was no more.

I’ve not been able to enjoy a bouncy house since that dreadful day without the use of a specially designed harness and backpack that allows me to hover above the steps themselves, never really ever setting foot on the metal menaces I refer to as the jaws, not of life, but death because of what happened to me that dark and disastrous day.

That day will live in infamy as one of the unfunniest days of my life.

For now, though, I think I’ll check to see what time constraints Go Fund Me has in place for inflatable-related pain and suffering.