Do you ever have random memories pop in your head and then you have to figure out what triggered them? The other day I was thinking about how much I loved playing with my mom's high heels when I was 4 years old. She had long, skinny feet - size 10 quadruple A. My little feet would fit into the toe section, so it was a very dangerous proposition to walk in them as the heels flapped behind me. I had practiced and become coordinated with the technique, but maybe got a little over-confident. One night, Mom and Dad arrived home from the grocery store. Along with all the bulging brown paper bags, they carried in a carton of Mason's root beer. What a treat. Back then we always got soft drinks in 16-ounce bottles in a cardboard carton that held eight. We returned the empty bottles to the store for a deposit refund.
As soon as they had carried in all the groceries, they paused to fix me a glass of root beer. It was a pleasant summer night in Indianapolis, so I decided to carry my drink out to the back yard. This would have been a much easier task if I weren't wearing my mother's high heels down a flight of four concrete steps. No one was paying attention, probably because I was the youngest of five children. I took a nose dive from the second step from the top. The glass shattered on the concrete and my face went right into it.
Dad scooped me up and carried me into the kitchen, quickly grabbing a washcloth to dab the blood off my face. I don't even recall the process of picking out the glass, but I do remember lying on the davenport with an ice pack on my face for the rest of the evening. I even remember the ice pack. It was made of a red rubbery material - like a whoopee cushion. It was used as either a hot water bottle or an ice pack, according to what you put in it.
My parents' friend Ronnie stopped by later that evening. He was always really sweet to me. I still have the mental picture of Ronnie lifting the ice pack to see how I was. He felt sorry for my condition - so he gave me a piece of gum. I laid in the living room, chewing gum with my face covered up and fell asleep. I remember waking up with the gum still in my mouth. It's a wonder I survived to my fifth birthday.
I don't have any permanent scars from the incident - at least physical ones. To this day, I still love root beer and I still wear high heels, but every time I walk down a flight of stairs, I think I'm going to fall and kill myself.
