I am mortified

[Mortifive]

Utterly and completely. And embarrassed.

At a petrol station earlier, returning to the car after paying for fuel, and I went flying. And when I say flying, I mean flying. I didn't stumble or trip, I flew.

And I couldn't have picked a more conspicuous spot to do it if I'd tried. It was a service station garage so a big and busy one.

Honestly, I am completely thrown beyond all proportion by this. It just made me feel old and stupid and pathetic :(.

I'm only 50 and I completely understand that.

I remind myself that I was still in my 20's when I had quite a long run of accidentally headbutting things, lamposts, signposts, windows etc It entertained my friends no end and fortunately I didn't suffer any major injuries.

It’s horrible to fall, most have done it though, I’ve stacked it whilst running quite spectacularly quite a few times and in front of witnesses too!

This has made me think of a night in the late 80's, when my younger sister begged to come out with us on a pub crawl, despite only being 14. She looked 18+, and to my amazement my parents let her come. She borrowed my Mum's black patent stilettos, as she didn't have any "grown up" shoes of her own. We went to a really busy pub that had two floors. We spent most of the night upstairs, and when it was time to leave, we got to the top of the very high sweeping staircase and she tripped in the stilettos and gambolled all of the way down to the bottom, ending up in a heap at the lower bar. The whole thing seemed to go in slow motion.

When I was a student I fell down the library stairs in front of a few lads from my course. They burst out laughing. I got up and walked away pretending my ankle didn’t hurt at all. As I’m quite clumsy I’m a master at getting up and walking off as if nothing hurts.

I was catering a wedding bbq in the summer. 150 people saw me go flying and land in an undignified heap on the stone flags. I heard them gasp and saying oh god... At least 20 blokes ran over to check I was ok... I was saying "yeah I'm fine, nothing broken" as blood poured down my arm from my elbow.. spent the next 2 hours with everyone asking if I was ok

I saw this happen to a girl in exactly the same way but it was the early noughties. Poor thing.

That’s interesting.
However, my Whippet when very young hadn’t full control of her growing limbs, and was careening around a park, in the joy if movement, with people watching and going “ Oohh!”
She tripped- She went over and over and over like a roly poly Swiss roll , and I swear she looked embarrassed afterwards.

Luckily she was unhurt.
Poor Racing Greyhounds often trip on the first bend, and really go over and over with the momentum.

Also for fall stories

I was in France on holiday and asked where the toilets where in the Irish bar we where in and they pointed and said over in the corner behind the screen. Now this bar was DARK so I rounded the corner where the screen was expecting a door and as I took a step round the screen I promptly fell down the pitch black flight of really steep stairs into the celler where the toilets where, no one warned me there was stairs

No one saw (given the screen and the darkness) but I broke my shoe (snapped clean in half), ripped off a few finger nails (trying to grab something as I went down) but I dont know if it was a wierd symptom of shock or what but I that second I got agonising stomach cramps and a minute later a REALLY heavy period out of nowhere.

I have a wierd PCOS so my periods are irregular (can go months without one) but are fairly light and not painful (I dont even notice them expect for the blood) and I had only had one about 3 weeks before so it was wierd but my stomach hurt so much I couldn't walk back to the hotel because I was bent double, I had to crawl back to sit down.

I got ZERO sympathy from anyone though.

oh OP, I hope you’re ok, but even if physically alright it’s a shock. I fell over recently tripping over my own feet and broke my big toe, I was wearing a brand new pair of expensive new walking sandals of all things, which I’ve never worn again since.
I am very clumsy and have a long history of fallings over, some of which I admit were very funny (I particularly remember the time I tripped getting off a boat and faceplanted into a random male bystander’s groin) but I have to say the older I get the less funny I find it all.

I once dropped my son at my childminders and was walking back down her drive when I fell and landed on my knees right in front of a guy who happened to be passing, I just looked at him and blurted out that I was pregnant…. He looked terrified poor bloke. I think I thought I had just over balanced due to the bump and needed to explain that.

more recently I fell on my way to work, a man in a van actually stopped to check I was ok, I’ve reached that age (47).

@Mortifive Sounds like your footwear could somehow have caused it on the ground surface.

Good lord there are some shocking stories on here. People ignoring other people really fucking bothers me.
I get that a shocked laugh isn’t necessarily anything other than a reaction but that’s a world away from refusing to help someone. Yesterday I went down a rabbit hole on YouTube and watched a few ship sinking videos and the behaviour of crewmen pushing women and children away and stealing lifeboats made me so pissed off (the Lusitania story was one of the most horrible).

Op I hope you’re ok.
That shock takes a while to recover from. I also firmly believe that falling over sometimes results in a rip in the space time continuum and our perception of time goes skewiff.

my last spectacular fall was in the middle of Oxford street on a Sunday two
weeks before Christmas. I swear I remember hovering star shaped over the ground whilst my bags and walking stick flew out around me in a perfect circle. I was most worried about my kids as it’s worse to witness something like that sometimes. I just nudged them into urban outfitters and ugly cried into my ripped hem
dress around the corner 😂

I will also never a) try and nip across a crossing to beat the red man and b) wear palazzo pants ever again.

Solidarity to all the others who have lost their vertical hold. We’re the ones who do the falling so others don’t have to.

@mam0918 did you get any sort of medical check up after that ? It sounds horrific.

I was going into a Cornish pasty shop and tripped up and threw my shopping bag over the counter

Oh OP I'm sorry. I'm sure loads of us have stacked it at some point it other. I'm a teacher and I went flying at school a few months ago - landed literally flat on my face in the middle of the corridor. It's happened to us all. It's okay (as long as you're okay!)

The dog spectacularly tripped me up in a very muddy field outside the army camp perimeter in front of probably 200 young soldiers doing PT.
They couldn’t have missed seeing me laid literally flat on my face in the mud.

The 1st time I ever met my now DH, I literally fell at his feet.
We were pen pals andthis was our 1st face to face meeting and I was trying to look glamorous and cool and I tripped over my own feet and fell right onto my face, right at his feet. He's since turned it into a story, that I fell for him at 1st sight, lol.
I was mortified at the time, but find it funny now.

Oh shit I've so many of these stories but for most recent and memorable
Walking into a charity shop with an already broken foot (from a different non memorable fall) tripped over the quite low step, face planted in the doorway, swore A LOT. They've since put bright yellow and black tape on the edge of the step. To be fair the staff did help and found me a seat to recover.

This one is horrible,
Forgot my glasses, was trying to read something on my phone and walk at same time (never again) fell down a flight of stairs on my arse, literally hit each step with my bottom, my phone broke into pieces, my ankle hurt a lot, my coccyx was broken, I spent weeks carrying a cushion everywhere I went so I could sit in less pain than without. And one woman older than me stopped to see if I was ok and tried to help me up. Everyone else walked on by.

And finally cos it's the most recent
I fell over the Hoover that was at the top of the stairs at home and cracked my head open on the radiator at the bottom. 64 stitches later. On the other hand I was alone so no one saw.

In my 20s wearing sex and the city type stilettos (almost 20 years ago - god knows how I wore those things every day) working for a huge corporate entity, running running down the tube escalators going down at Bank Station as I was late for work. Not only did I literally fly up in the air and knocked down 2 men in front of me but one of my stilettos flew over to the other escalator going up and almost knocked out the poor guy in the face who was merely standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. In my worst moments, I remember that day.

Hope you feel better soon OP!

I'm known for falling over but I'll never forget the time when I was 18 I was walking home in the snow from my Xmas work night out and I was carrying a jar of jellybeans I'd been given for secret santa, although I was being very careful I was momentarily distracted by 5 young men in santa suits and up I went, landed flat on my back spilling the jar of jellybeans everywhere. The Santa's walked by laughing their heads off and didn't even stop to help!

I also slipped on a patch of mud recently when I was on the way to pick up my daughter from school and landed in a puddle, cut my hand and really hurt my back, though it wasn't until later when the shock wore off that I really felt that! When my daughter saw my bloody hand she burst out crying and a teacher came over to find out why so I had to explain which set dd off again.

I face planted on one of the busiest junctions in London coming home from work to my accommodation at rush hour !
Two lovely people picked me up and asked if I was alright , thank god I had dark trousers on as the shock had made me wet myself :(
I then had to wait for about half an hour for a toilet in the railway station as a family of about ten people were alternately using the one loo.
thank goodness I was staying over with a change of clothes as a four hour journey home would have been even more mortifying stinking of pee!

I've done this before, pretended I was really hurt so I didn't have to get up for a while and hid my face lol

I turned my ankle and something went click outside Hampton Court station on the platty joobs weekend. It was packed. I had my two kids with me and I had to sit down in a doorway and try not to cry in front of them. Then I had to get an Uber home because I could never walk back from the train station with my injury. Kids were so excited by the taxi and I was in tears every time the car went over a bump😂

the story about bar stairs...some places seem like accudents waiting to happen. Weird zig zag steps at More London, which should be more accessible, and the stairs at the bar at the Gherkin...I can't believe staff carry trays on those!

I think you are probably actually in shock. Don't be mortified- people should be mortified about things like deliberately poor behaviour, not an accident like this.

If I'd seen it I would have just been concerned for you and would think it's the sort of thing that could happen to anyone.

Oh blimey I did something very similar about 25 years ago, though I think it was probably Victoria underground not Bank. Rushing for a train, I tripped on the up escalator, cut my shin on the metal steps and ripped a pair of tights to shreds (though I could do that with hangnails never mind falling over). That cut took a while to heal.

More recently, we’d just come out of a big lockdown and I was walking down the road to post a letter. I didn’t notice that there was a dropped kerb, lost my footing and faceplanted (weirdly frightening; it was like I’d forgotten my spatial orientation). The kerb at the pull-in a few steps ahead smacked me in the solar plexus and I was quite winded for a bit; I also got some lovely grazes on my right hand. Since that time, some of my finger joints in that hand have got a bit ‘clicky’, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.