This story is famous from coast to coast. I'm kind of a big deal because of it. Now, it would be something to boast about had I done something to earn it, you know like win a Tony (with my super awesome singing voice that makes the dog huff at me) or make it on the NYT bestseller list. I repost it here because 1) it was posted three years ago, so newbies might have missed it; 2) I'm selfless enough to sacrifice my dignity for the entertainment of others; and 3) it almost happened to me again this morning, which is why I have diagnosed myself with bathnophobia, or "fear of stairs and slopes." It's real.
So to you I present, The Human Bobsled Story.
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The Holy Grail of Humiliation
When I finish this story, all will be both impressed with my resilience and understand why it's taken me three years to tell this story, though it is one for the ages.
One time, I was a human bobsled.
One time, I was a human bobsled.
Picture it. Cannon House Office Building. 2004. It looks like this. Or one door of it does.
It was built in 1908. Those marble steps were built then too. The steps are worn thin in the middle, like someone had spent 96 years buffing bowls in them, and they are slick as shit.
Do you know where this story is going?
In August of 2004, I quit my job, which was located in this building. That same month, I was interviewing for other jobs in this same building. If memory serves, and where this incident is involved it is damn near perfect, I had interviews at 1, 2 and 4 in the afternoon, so my friend and I decided to go one block and grab some lunch. Because I had interviews that afternoon, I was wearing a favorite skirt and black sweater, and black heels. I had just swapped my heels out for flip flops to pad down to Bullfeathers to get my favorite sammich: a blackened chicken pita. Bully's had the seriously good ranch dressing.
Upon approaching the door, my friend and I noticed that it was drizzling, and we muttered the same expletives regarding running around in the rain, but hungry and craving ranch dressing we were. It was only a block. I exited the door first and proceeded down the right side of the steps. No sooner had my foot left the first step bound for the second, but both my frigging feet shot out from under me and I went down like I was an Olympian on the luge. It looked like this
but without the appropriate equipment and attire and snow.
People were filing out the door behind me and a very young Congressman was walking in while I was sliding out. My friend behind me was shouting "Oh my God! Oh my God!"
I stopped about three steps from the bottom. My skirt was around my waist. My Spanx (but they weren't Spanx six years ago. They were just really high, really tight underwear) were all wet in the ass area. My feet were about five feet apart, which means I gave a young CongressMAN quite the show. I rose and stood still while my friend helped me pull down my skirt and dust the wet schmutz off my back. All straight. Nothing broken but my ego. I stepped out again.
And AGAIN I luged down the steps, completely off the marble and onto the concrete. One of my flip flops flew off. My purse slid off my shoulder and the contents spilled onto the concrete. I was That Girl who threw her tampons all over the street. Young, yuppie Congressional staff walked around me like I was a non-event. The security guard just stood in the door to witness this humiliation.
Then it started to really rain. I thought, "This is where I've arrived. I'm unemployed. On my ass. On the ground. Showing my panties to Congress and God and everyone coming off the Metro. In the rain."
A homely woman, clearly a tourist by the looks of her Mom jeans, pushing a stroller along the sidewalk below, felt the need to stop and comment.
"Wow, that marble must be slick." To which my friend stood upright from her previous bent position trying to get my skirt to head down to my knees where it belonged, and screamed "YA THINK?!"
She helped me up again and straightened me out again and recovered all my belongings. For good measure, I decided to walk barefoot to our destination, since I had clearly lost the ability to walk in flip flops.
It was five hours before I could even tell the story. Recalling it is a mix of awe and humiliation. I did not get a job in that building, but they have since replaced those f***ing marble steps.
I remember this story with the aches of muscle memory whenever I interview for jobs. And when my friend Arkansas, who was not even there but is killing herself laughing at this for the 1,373rd time in our friendship while she is reading it, reminds me of it.
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So now, almost ten years later, this is all about perspective. Nothing that has ever happened to me - not the loss of a job, a husband, a friend, a figure, a house, or any other fall I've ever made - has ever dealt a more devastating blow to my self esteem than this. And I stood up just fine.
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