The Daily Tannenbaum

These are the stairs in my cottage.
They’re perilous. I’ve known this since I moved in 6 months ago, and I’ve gotten cocky with my ability to bound up and down them, navigating over the 4th step from the bottom, the one that’s smaller than all the others. And, oh yes, the others are small to begin with; walking up them is not too far removed from ascending up a ladder. I’ve even perfected the dance with Micki, who likes to shoot down the stairs at the same time I do first thing in the morning hoping to create some kind of bond that will make me chose to put food in her dish before I put urine in the toilet. Of course, her dance became a lot more calculated after the day I stepped on her tail.

The drama started at 6:00 this morning when I descended the stairs on my way to the Y for a morning swim when my slippers, my cat, and my 4th stair from the bottom conspired and gave me a hard lesson in gravity. I went down, hard. My right thigh took most of the fall (I now have a cool 4th stair-shaped bruise in the works), and I got scrapes on my elbows and ankle of the likes I haven’t seen since elementary school. I’m also finding it difficult to raise my left arm, so I suppose I did some damage to my shoulder as well.

The worst part was that I didn’t even get to go swimming.

See that 4th step? And those slippers may look cute, but damn, they’re bitches.