Stupid Injuries

Don't you just hate getting hurt through some stupid action? For instance, I played farmer yesterday and spent a couple hours digging potatoes out of the ground in my father-in-law's garden. At one point I stepped on the hoe and smacked myself in the lip with the handle. FRACK! Right in the face -- dead-center on my lower lip. Then, today, I was loading the dishwasher and somehow got my knee perfectly positioned to catch the door as I apparently slammed it upward with all my strength. The edge of the door nailed my patella tendon -- cutting into the skin THROUGH my jeans! It still hurts to walk and I did it several hours ago. Speaking of still hurting, my left foot still hurts from where I kicked a steel protrusion on the dive boat I was on in the Galapagos -- all because I was in a hurry to catch a sunset picture and didn't factor a rolling boat into my "how to walk and not get hurt" formula.

I place these injuries in the same category as breaking an ankle running to catch the phone, fracturing a collarbone in a parking lot the first time you clip into bike pedals, or scratching your pupil with long, flailing shoelaces when you're in a hurry to lace up your hiking boots. We should be getting hurt by jumping off cliffs on skis and snowboards, or by getting crushed by two defenders a half second after kicking a winning goal in soccer, or by mountain biking down a series of 10 foot tall ledges. Yet, it seems that more often than not, the best injuries occur with the story that you just don't want to tell.

"Hey Chuck, how'd you break that arm, windsurfing, hang-gliding, or ice climbing?"

"Well, you see Rudy, I was just sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. Then I thought that I'd see what the temperature was outside, so I got up and promptly fell down when my left foot somehow got tangled up in the chair. I wouldn't have broken my arm though had I not made every attempt to avoid spilling my cereal on the floor. I kept the cereal bowl upright (whew!), but landed on my left elbow, fracturing it into 14 pieces that required 9 operations and $57,000 to fix."

Any other stories about stupid injuries out there? If so, feel free to add a comment!