Falling Flat

I figure I’m down in DC, I should get out and do some of the things that have been on my list to do since we moved out here however many years ago. So the other day, I did just that. I had to go to the post office and figured that since the Old Post Office is just across the street, I might as well go check that one off my list. It didn’t go exactly as I had planned…

As I was confidently walking up the big, stone stairs (because Hi! I’ve been doing this walking thing for quite some time now), I didn't notice one piece of stone jutting out from the rest. It was a tiny piece, just a couple of inches wide (yes, it got very carefully examined after the fact). Well it was big enough to catch the toe of my shoe and catch it hard. Hard enough for it to throw me forward enough that I completely lost my balance. I was two steps from the top so I figured I would just put my hand out and catch myself on the landing. Makes sense, right? Except the landing was wet. And when stone is wet? It’s slippery. So my hand slid out from under me, sending the rest of me straight to the ground. Given I was not completely up the stairs yet, that means a portion of me was still on the stairs. The portion that was my ankle, my knee and my thigh. But I fell with enough force that those pieces just twisted and scraped along the stairs to land on the landing with the rest of me as my hand, then elbow, then hip hit the ground. It hurt. It hurt quite a lot. And yeah, hello, falling flat down in downtown DC – just a little embarrassing. But you know what? That wasn’t even the worst part. And I HATE being embarrassed. No, the worst part was the fact that it so wasn’t even worth it!

I went up to the top, to the twelfth floor, where there is supposed to be an amazing observation deck that lets you see out over the whole city. It is the second highest building in the city, afterall. It fell a little flat for me (kind of like I did for it just moments before). Sure, you can see out over the city and it is quite impressive. Maybe I was just bitter that the old building was trying to break a limb or just simply kill me. Or maybe I had taken away some of the thrill by being on the roof of my building beforehand. Regardless, I took some pictures, whined that I still don’t work at the FBI building and then came back down and went on my merry way. (Being much more cautious about their stairs on my way down!)