oh, baby ...

back in college, I was late one morning to finish a take-home exam, and I was barrelling down this really narrow street. I thought to myself, "Gee, this is a narrow, busy street. maybe it'll be safer on the sidewalk!"

short version: compression fracture of my 12th thoracic vertebra.

longer version: this car pulls out of her driveway and pauses to check for traffic. I slam on the brakes and endo through the air, bounce on my head and slam back-first into her left front quarter panel. a few inches higher and I'dve been folded in half, backwards. as it was, I thought I could walk it off, but it just hurt more and more, until my friend Tola (who went on to Duke Medical School) dragged me to the hospital.

now, picture me still doing that thing Chris Farley used to do on his SNL "Chris Farley Show" sketches, pounding my own forehead and yelling to myself STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID!!! my back still isn't the same.

-a.