Free falling

My Darling Beloved forbids me from ascending a ladder. Stepstools are borderline. Climbing on anything not built with the intention of helping you reach high places is an absolute no-no.

She would much rather pay someone to go on the roof and clean the gutters than have me attempt such a life-threatening maneuver. I have to sneak the ladder out to the yard to adorn shrubberies with Christmas lights.

Last March when the floodlight on the highest corner of our house went out, I refused to pay someone to change it. We don’t own a 30-foot extension ladder and Carla would never, ever, under no circumstances let me climb that high. So I invested in a 28-foot, extendable light bulb changer. (For the record, it works way better at getting the dead bulb out than screwing in the replacement.)

Given my Darling Beloved’s dire warnings and my track record of 100 percent compliance with her mandates, I had a series of interesting thoughts during the seconds I was suspended in mid-air as the chair I had used to reach the top of a book case at work toppled over beneath me.

My first thought: Whelp, this is it. I’m going out in a fashion that will end up as one of those security camera videos of workplace accidents that my algorithm frequently serves up on Facebook Reels. 

Second thought: I should have listened to Carla. Climbing onto a chair to adjust this picture was not worth risking my life.

Third thought: How would I word the organization-wide email to the Georgia Student Finance Commission announcing my sudden and tragic demise in the workplace along with the mandatory safety training everyone would be henceforth subjected to annually?

Career coaches and organizational psychologists warn that job transitions can be challenging. I have not read nor heard a podcast discuss that they can be deadly.

See, what had happened was, late in the afternoon on Friday, June 6, I chose to decorate my new office at the GSFC. I pulled a chair over to a bookcase to arrange a framed piece of art of the Ruby Laser that former colleagues from GTRI gave me after we worked on a laser project together. The book case was a little too tall and too deep for me to reach the top. This is unusual for me since I’m 6’ 4” and frequently called on by my Darling Beloved to retrieve items in the upper cabinets of our home. (That and killing bugs are my two most useful spousal skills.)

I scanned the office for a way to gain about another foot of reach. The side chair looked stable, but I was deceived. Even standing in the seat and not precariously on the back, proved to be ill-advised. Just as I shifted my weight to reach the picture, the chair toppled over backward.

Due solely to Divine intervention, the only injury I sustained was a bump on my forehead from my knee. When I finally came to rest on the floor after what seemed like minutes and minutes of falling and after the adrenaline wore off enough to begin to feel pain, I realized just how comical the scene must have been for my knee to be the instrument of my head injury. I imagined a slow motion video of someone dumping Tinker Toys out of a cylindrical container.

Once I determined I was not dead, I looked around to make sure no one saw me. No one did. And since no one came to see what all that commotion was coming from the new guy’s office, I was relieved to escape notice. No one would ever know. (Don’t you tell anyone! This is super embarrassing!) To be fair to my new colleagues, it was late on a Friday, and my office is at the end of a hall. It does raise a deeper, philosophical question: if a forewarned goofball falls out of a chair at work and no coworkers witness it, does he make a sound?

In the nearly 15 years since I passed the 40 threshold, I have observed a number of behaviors that need adjusting to prevent bodily harm. I no longer run 40 miles a week, for instance. I do not attempt to drive long distances with little sleep. I make it a habit to avoid greasy foods late at night. I wear a light jacket when the temperature dips below 80.

Falling is no joke. As my parents and in-laws aged, I became increasingly aware of how serious a threat falling is to a person’s overall health and longevity. I’ve decided during the intervening weeks since this incident occurred that I would do well to treat this as a reminder to make good decisions with my personal safety.

It’s also yet another example of Carla being right.

Y’all be safe out there.