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As I approach the end of my 37th year, I have had an epiphany. I finally realize my true calling. I exist to give people something to laugh at.<\/p>\nAs I approach the end of my 37th year, I have had an epiphany. I finally realize my true calling. I exist to give people something to laugh at.<\/p>\n
Don’t mistake this for a pity party. I’m pretty excited actually. I have slowly come to grips with my ability to make a fool out of myself.<\/p>\n
My moment of clarity came 10 days ago when I fell down Federal Hill in Baltimore.<\/p>\n
I didn’t actually fall as much as I careened down the top slope of the downtown landmark. Somehow, I got it in my head that I could race a friend to the bottom.<\/p>\n
Luckily, she realized the folly of that idea and had a wonderful view from the top as I hurtled out of control to my fate.<\/p>\n
Did I mention that all this took place during a department retreat for work and the friends witnessing this exhibition were my co-workers? I sure know how to spice up the day.<\/p>\n
I knew I had made a mistake halfway down. Actually, I knew I made a mistake after a few steps when I sped up much faster than I intended, but I realized halfway down that I would pay a big price for this piece of bravado.<\/p>\n
For those who don’t know, Federal Hill is high and steep. There are three levels with a concrete walking path separating them.<\/p>\n
So as I ran down, all I could see was that walking path and imagine my face scraping across it. I had to toggle my mind between not falling until I got to the first flat area, but managing not to hit the concrete.<\/p>\n
The problem was that I’m not the most graceful human being while walking on flat land. Imagine trying to time a landing correctly while running downhill at full speed in shoes with a well-worn sole. That doesn’t even mention worrying about my ankles (I have sprained both) and my bad knees.<\/p>\n
I settled for a variation on a bellyflop. By taking advantage of my prodigious midsection, I avoided breaking a limb. I imagine I looked like an airplane landing without its wheels.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t pretty.<\/p>\n
I got to my feet pretty quickly, but couldn’t really assess the damage.<\/p>\n
A friend asked if I was OK. I answered, “No.” When I rolled up my pants legs, I couldn’t believe there was no blood on either knee. I hit the ground hard and slid for a few feet.<\/p>\n
I hadn’t even ripped a hole in my pants. After I started to catch my breath, I realized I had come out pretty lucky. I just stained my clothes pretty bad, although I realized later that a button was ripped from my shirt.<\/p>\n
Oh, and I had some scratches on one forearm, I bruised both knees and had some soreness in my shoulders.<\/p>\n
But I entertained my co-workers and provided many others with a great story.<\/p>\n
It’s what I live for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I approach the end of my 37th year, I have had an epiphany. I finally realize my true calling. I exist to give people something to laugh at. Don’t mistake this for a pity party. I’m pretty excited actually….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-making-an-idiot-out-of-myself","wpcat-3-id","wpcat-23-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}