So I fell down the stairs the other day. Landed so fiercely that the bruise color looks like my right ass cheek sat in a blueberry pie. Mind you, the fall was only two stairs, like two actual steps, not flights of stairs. I wasn’t paying attention, I was looking at my watch with my left hand and eating grapes in my right hand. When I slipped, I caught a glimpse of the ceiling light fixture behind my watch, so I think I was definitely airborne for a certain amount of time. I might have touched the ceiling. Or outer space. So I came down on the sticky outy part of the stair that Siri tells me is called the tread nosing, which is the part that goes out over the riser of the next tread or step. So the sticky outy part. And I hit one, and I bounced back up to outer space, and then I hit the second one, and then I landed on the floor and still did not know what time it was and decided I would never eat grapes while walking again, because I was lucky I hadn’t choked and died. I actually say that to my kids about grapes, “Don’t walk and eat that – Don’t talk and eat that – you could choke and die”. God has a seriously funny sense of humor sometimes.
But the blueberry butt bruise took about two hours to appear. I kept checking. I couldn’t believe there was no evidence. It hurt so badly that I pulled out a 5 pound bag of frozen eggplant from the Ice Age out of my freezer and sat on it for the first hour. I thought, hmm, maybe that ice trick really works. Nope. That’s a lie. I haven’t measured this bruise the color of a black hole, but considering my pants size is not what it was in college, the bruise may be about six feet wide and two feet tall. And defying gravity. It got lumpy too. There was a hard spot running all along the upper edge of the bruise that made me think that maybe some of my butt fat deposits had been pushed upwards and out of the way of my lower butt. My sister says this is not physically possible or she would throw herself down the stairs in order to move fat from places she doesn’t want it upwards into her boobs. That makes sense. Obviously we grew up in the same family and have the same understanding of all things scientific, medical, and engineering.
But once my blueberry butt bruise appeared, I was obsessed with it. It extended across the entire width of my right butt cheek and was more than half the height. This was impressive. I think it may be the most horrible bruise on an ass ever recorded. But how do I share that? I couldn’t get a photo without including my crack, and that wasn’t really what I was going for. I just wanted sympathy, and agreement that this was the worst butt bruise ever made. Ever. Made.
But who could see it? I had to wait for the hubby to get home from work. I mean, that is really one of the top reasons we humans get married, so that when something bad happens to our ass, there is someone who HAS to look at it. Brian didn’t want to look at it. I let him get away with that for exactly four seconds before I reminded him it was his spousal duty to look at it. He looked. He almost barfed. I ignored him. I needed someone more interested. He was interested in my ass, yes, blueberry butt bruise, not so much.
But, my mom and sister and I were hanging out the next day. I was at my sister’s house about four seconds when I said “I really need to show you my butt”. On the phone with my sister I say ass four thousand times, but in front of my mom I only say butt. Sometimes I’m still a kid. So they gathered together like the loving family they are and I dropped my pants. The double gasp was perfect. The simultaneous Oh My Gods were amazing. It was everything I dreamed when someone looked at my ass. And then the door behind me opened. I was certain it was my brother-in-law home early from work. I panicked and pulled up my pants as quickly as I could without hurting myself or vomiting.
But it was just the wind and a draft moving the door. No brother in law. Which made me quickly realize that not everyone should be privileged enough to see my butt bruise. This was a special inner circle of ass-gazing. I started thinking about the friends that I have and who I would drop my drawers and say “Look at this monstrosity”. And I am so blessed that there are so many people in that circle. Because when it really comes down to it, the people who want to see our worst parts are our best people.