The Slam Heard Round The World (March 2002)

hello all.

many of you may remember my last installment of Amy's Great Adventures, where the headline might have been "Alto Gets Decked in the Face With Cross Before Gospel Choir Concert." if you missed it, please let me know so that i can bring you up to date on my latest acts of physical klutzdom. that being said, allow me to entertain you once again with my amazing ability to thrust myself into situations that cause me physical pain in bizarre ways.

Episode 14: The Slam Heard Round The World
(editor's note: episode numbers are COMPLETELY arbitrary and mean nothing.)

you know how, sometimes, you get out of a car and go to shut the door and find 10,000 watts of electricity searing through your body? okay, maybe not 10,000 watts, but i think we all know how annoying the "car door shock" is to unsuspecting drivers and passengers. i hate it. for those who are still confused, it's the same phenomenon that occurs when your "friends" used to scuff their socks on the carpet and then come up and touch you. unacceptable in every way.

so last night i arrived at stop & shop up in good ol' hyde park, ny (motto: We Have More Historical Sites Than Traffic Lights!) to pick up some essentials. i proceeded to get out of the car and make a move to shut the door behind me. before i could actually touch the door, however, warning bells went off in my head, saying "DON'T TOUCH THAT DOOR! YOU'LL GET SHOCKED AND JUMP MANY FEET UP IN THE AIR, AND PEOPLE IN THE PARKING LOT WILL STARE AND LAUGH AT YOU!" thank goodness for those bells. i certainly didn't want anyone to laugh at my physical misfortune.

i heeded my warning bells and decided on Plan B. which was, of course, to shut the door by grabbing onto the INSIDE door handle and yanking with all my might. i'll give you a moment to process that.

some of you might be sitting here, thinking, "anyone with an I.Q. higher than cheese would realize this is a horrific idea. i mean, you're just ASKING to get your finger/hand/arm slammed in the door!" and to that i reply, "HA! i did nothing of the sort! i slammed my FACE in the door."

yes, that's right. while i managed to get my upper appendages out of the way, i conveniently forgot to remove my face. and therefore managed to slam the car door, full force, into the side of my head. the good news is that the entire left side of my face was numb for about a minute, so i had a little bit of time to make sense of what had just happened before the pain set in. once the pain set in, i thought it might be a good idea to check the situation out, so i proceeded to reach back with my hand and make sure my face was intact. indeed it was, but my hand came back to me (apologies to the squeamish) covered in blood.

PANIC TIME!!! i'm actually a pretty good panicker-- i manage to keep it together for the most part during possible emergency situations. the only problem is that i often act on the first urge that hits me. for example, upon realizing that there was blood coming from somewhere on the left side of my face, i thought, "okay! i need something to put on the wound! a towel or something!" *looks frantically for something to use* "i know! i'll use my shirt!" *begins to remove shirt... realizes there is nothing on underneath shirt*

fortunately, i had just enough common sense to remember that i really didn't want to flash the parking lot, and kept the shirt on... though i was inches away from violating most of the cars in the parking lot. i finally found some napkins in the bottom of the car and stuck them on my head. i tried to situate myself in the car so that i could see my head in the rearview mirror, but the light wasn't good enough so i couldn't really see what had happened. i then decided that i needed to quickly drive home, still holding the wad of paper towels up to my head, and reassess the situation. i got in the car and began driving out of the parking lot. halfway across, i checked the paper towels and realized that there was a LOT less blood than when i started. i checked with another one-- even less. so i decided to go back to the parking lot instead of driving home in a panic. after parking back in my spot, i tried again to check with the rearview mirror and the side mirror and couldn't really tell what was going on, but the bleeding had basically stopped. i felt okay... not at all dizzy... and i really needed to buy contact lens solution. so i kept a napkin close at hand, put my hood up, and proceeded into stop & shop.

now. remember that my reasoning for not wanting to get shocked was to avoid public embarrassment. upon coming out of the store, i realized that there was a woman sitting in the car next to mine who had been watching the whole ordeal. so first she saw me slam my car door into the side of my face and then proceed to begin to rip off my shirt. then she saw me dive into the car and stick napkins to the side of my head, and then start sticking my face up to the rearview mirror. next she saw me peel out of the parking lot, only to return about 30 seconds later. then she saw me stick my face up to the mirror once again before getting out of the car and kneeling on the pavement while sticking my ear up next to the side mirror. finally, she saw me put my hood up (it was about 65 degrees with not a cloud in the sky) and walk into stop & shop. and i wonder why people wonder about me sometimes.

after getting home and assessing the situation, i found that the only damage was a small but somewhat deep cut on the back of my left ear. i have NO idea how such a small cut could produce that much blood, but everybody says head wounds bleed like nobody's business. i don't ask questions. i proceeded to tell the story to my mother, whose response was "there's a first aid kit in the glove compartment. did you remember to pick up the ice cream cake for tomorrow?"

my mother, ladies and gentlemen.

moral of the story? i don't know. probably something like "don't slam your head in a car door." and if you do, wear an undershirt.

Cross-Eyed (Dec 2001)

As many of you know, I am a member of the NYU All-University Gospel Choir, an organization that I wholeheartedly love. Last Thursday, we gave our winter concert at a local church, and the concert itself went very well. Let me take you back, however, to approximately an hour before the concert began...

When I say that everything was going wrong, I underexaggerate. EVERYTHING was going wrong. Our special guest artists had not arrived, we had lost our CD player, the security guards could not get the door to the chapel open, and, above all, the back room that we normally use to relax and to hold our belongings before the concert was taken away from us. We are a 50-member choir. None of us are quiet people. The only space that we had to wait (for approximately an hour and a half, mind you) was in a small, cramped hallway that led to the chapel where we were going to perform. Imagine the chaos.

After approximately a half hour of waiting, we finally were moved to a new hallway that was just as small and cramped. However, it DID have a few wooden beams that were stacked on top of each other so that we could sit down. I plopped down onto one of the beams and breathed a sigh of relief. Only to hear the words "LOOK OUT!!!!!" being bellowed from approximately ten sopranos.

Allow me to define the term "Gospel Choir Soprano." This is not any old soprano. This is not the nice old grandmotherly soprano from your church choir back home. This is not the cute little child sopranos that make you cry with the innocence of their voices. This is not even the operatic soprano with the Viking hat on that graces the Met. This is a banshee. These ladies have voices that could blow the quills off a porcupine. When they yell, "LOOK OUT!!!!," you LOOK. No questions asked. No time to even THINK about doing anything differently.

So I looked. And was promptly smacked square in the face with an 8-foot-tall wooden cross.

Yes. That's right. A large... wooden... CROSS.

Before I reflect on the irony of this statement, allow me to explain to you what had actually occurred. Apparantly, as I was sitting down, there was some jostling going on in the tenor section and a small tenor named Mariano was caught amidst the commotion. In the jostling, he somehow managed to stumble into the cross, which was precariously perched against the wall right next to the place where we were all sitting. The cross began to tip and the sopranos began to yelp.

The result? Near unconsciousness and utter chaos. I can now proudly tell you what seeing stars feels like. It's actually not all that cool. Also not cool is being unable to feel your face and having to put your hands up to it every few seconds to check and see if you were bleeding. Once my vision returned and the numbness subsided, I becaome quite indignant that I was struck by a CROSS while about to sing the gospel. I also became convinced that I would have black eyes the next morning, which was actually sort of a cool possibility. Much to my dismay, I was only left with a big knot above my eyebrows and a great deal of lost pride, which could probably be found scattered about in that infamous hallway.

However, the next day I was informed by a knowledgable individual that anyone who suffers even the mildest of concussions (which I probably had managed to accomplish) will have the same brain scan for a week as an individual who is in a coma. Learn something new every day, I tell you... that definitely made up for the lack of black eyes.

'Till next time!