Hlootoo's Art

wyrd66:

So yesterday at work I was sitting cross-legged in my computer chair like I normally do, and I dropped a paperclip on the floor. I had my feet tucked under in a really comfortable position so I didn’t want to unfold myself to get up, pick up the paperclip, and then re-fold myself into the chair.

No problem, I thought. I’ll just lean way over and pick up the paperclip. I’ll hold onto my desk to keep my balance.

Well it didn’t work.

I spent probably twenty seconds veeeeery slooooowly overbalancing and trying to recover and failing to do so. Naturally I finished falling out of the chair right when a coworker walked by. She stopped and gave me a baffled look, as you do when you find someone sprawled on the floor of their cubicle, and asked if I was okay. I said yes I was, and she continued on her way.

Now I’m not even embarrassed because in my Psychology class in college I was sitting in the front row of class on the first day of class, and I dropped my erasure on the floor. No problem, I thought, I’ll just scootch forward and stealthily pick it up. This classroom had chairs like in the theatre, where the seat folds up out of the way to save room, so when I went to sit back in my chair, the seat was folded up so I missed and hit my desk on the way to the ground, knocking my backpack, my binder, my pencil, my notebook, and the syllabus into the air, before they landed on the ground around me.

So when a hundred and fifty classmates are witness to that sort of thing, and your professor stops in the middle of her lecture to ask if you are all right, falling out of your chair in front of just one person doesn’t really register.