January 30th

warning: contains a gross & graphic image of dirt & blood & shredded skin

If you watch the show New Girl, you may be familiar with the character Winston and his love of pranks. Winston enjoys pranks but he’s really bad at them in that he always goes too small, or way, WAY too big.

I’m very similar, in that I love pranks but I’m bad at them. The problem is partly that I can’t keep it together and I start laughing and ruin my own prank, and partly I’M A FUCKING IDIOT.

Last night Taylor was taking the dogs for a walk. We always use the same dog walking route so after I took the food scraps* out I decided to meet up with him. Originally I planned to just run up and get the dogs all excited, but when I saw where they were on the path I decided it was the perfect opportunity for a prank.

The park opposite has a path that runs between the fenced dog park and the fenced schoolyard. On the dog park side of the path there are some community garden plots, and at the east end the community gardeners have built a small shed to keep tools, a picnic table, and a large compost bin. I decided to crouch down and hide behind the compost bin and when Taylor got close, jump out and scare him by screaming. THE PERFECT PRANK, since he was far enough from my hiding place that my giggling wouldn’t give me away.

I crouched down really low and waited, peeking around the corner of the bin. When Georgie & Kichou came into view I sprung out, screaming like a banshee. AND THIS IS WHERE EVERYTHING WHEN WRONG. You see, what I didn’t realize (because it was dark and I’m an idiot) is that I was standing in slippery mud. When I lunged forward from my crouched position my feet slid out from under me and my banshee screaming soon turned into real screaming of the “OH SHIT” variety. Taylor was scared for like one second and then he was just baffled as I flailed my way towards the path, pinwheeling my arms and trying to regain my balance. I could have just let myself fall but I didn’t want to get gross compost-adjacent mud all over my nice North Face parka, so I kept going.

I feel like I got lower and lower to the ground as I flailed and slipped and pinwheeled and eventually I just crash landed on the path. THE GRAVEL PATH. I skidded all the way across it on my hands and elbows and one hip and it was all very spectacular. As soon as I came to a stop I rolled over and started laughing because it was SO FUCKING FUNNY like omg what a boneheaded move.

I figured my hands would be skinned but when I held them up they were not just skinned but shredded, embedded with gross dirt & rocks and bleeding pretty spectacularly. I actually thought I might have to go get stitches in one of the cuts, it was pretty deep, and I was definitely looking forward to explaining to the emergency room personnel how I’d done it (It was a prank!). Taylor helped me up and cut the dog walk short because I obviously couldn’t be trusted the walk home on my own get my keys out of my coat pocket with my blood-hands.

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pranks!

When we got back to the house I washed my hands and thankfully the bleeding had stopped (so no stitches needed) but I had to scrub them to get the filth out and also pick off some of the mangled, unsalvageable skin shreds. Gross, painful, not fun. I also managed to skin one elbow (through my parka, somehow?) and this morning my hip is super sore. It hasn’t bruised yet but I think it will as it seems to have a huge goose egg on it (which is not something I realized one could get in places other than one’s head).

I still think it was an excellent prank and very funny, just maybe not the best execution.

*Vancouver started a food scraps recycling program last summer and I was ALL ABOUT IT until my house became infested with fruit flies. I quit using my food scraps bin for months (shh don’t tell the mayor) until I realized I could keep it in the freezer and it would remain bug free. DUH.

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