Life as a Gimp...***sniff,sniff**

I remember being a kid and seeing someone on crutches and thinking,"That would be so cool to have to use those!" But now, 3 weeks into my 10 week stint with MY crutches, I would love to go back in time and beat the shit out of that little twerp!

The first obstacle: I live on the 3rd floor. No elevator. Do I need to say more? Of course I do! 3 flights of stairs on crutches is, at this point, the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. Which I always wanted to climb so I guess this was God's cruel yet loving way of giving me what I wanted! Carlos was following me down one day and I leaned a little too far forward and started to fall, he reached out and caught the hood of my sweatshirt which jerked the zipper up to my throat and produced a sound quite like that of Homer choking Bart. It was a nice catch and I had to sit down because I was laughing so hard.

Second obstacle: Public places. I swear to you, people have never seen another person on crutches. I went to Happy Sumo the other night with a group of friends and as I hobbled through the restaurant, you would have though I was a girl walking on crutches with no legs and possibly no arms! True, it is an amazing feat to use crutches and I am a highly skilled pro at this point, but it made me think, "Dammit, did one of my boobs fall out of my shirt???" The way people were staring! And when I was standing outside waiting for our table this guy walks up to me and asks, "So which one should I kick?"...What the hell is that? I'm sure that guy walks up to someone with no hands and says, "Hey! High-five!"

Don't even get me started on Public Bathrooms!

Third obstacle: Public doors. I never truly appreciated those pads by the doors at the mall that you push and the door opens...until I realized that hardly any doors have them! I was trying to exit a building the other day, and in order to do so, I have to swing the door open really wide and then stop the door with the rubber end of my crutch. Well, in doing this a nice looking guy runs over to help out and as I smile and say, "Oh, no worries, but thank you!" and try to make my next move...the rubber part at the bottom of the crutch got stuck under the door and it jerked the crutch right out from under my arm and the poor guy almost had to catch me. SO Embarrassed!!!

There are many more obstacles, but I must say that there are a few advantages to having crutches:

1. Crowds part like the Red Sea
2. You should feel my arms!!
3. Sympathy votes when I'm standing in lines.
4. I always get offered a seat, and when I am being sat at a restaurant, I usually get to pick which table I want!
5. Pain meds. No explanation needed.
6. An Excuse. I have the mother of all excuses to not have to do certain things.

Have any of you ever had a go on crutches? Let me know!

Ciao!