Falling and Toilet Seats

It’s not the first time that I have noticed how askew the world is, but nothing brings that fact home like taking a spill across the asphalt and smashing into gravel. The view from that angle is not pretty at all, even though I had an up close and personal view of the grass, which, I suppose under different circumstances, might have been nice.

My husband took me home and patched me up and now I’m alright, but, it was not the most fun day ever.

Before I took that fall, I went to Lowes to return a toilet seat. Yes, that’s right. There is nothing more humiliating than falling on the asphalt while cars drive past and joggers glance briefly as you hit the dirt. Oh yes, nothing of course, except returning a toilet seat.

It turns out we didn’t need it. It was sitting around with other things that needed to be returned. Things that were left over from small repairs that we did on our house.

I was planning to take a nice drive out to Lowes to buy a few plants when my husband called to me from the other room. “Honey, will you return the toilet seat?” Of course, now the joy was gone. What started as a nice little trip for fun turned into a chore. I picked up the box, reluctantly, and took the long walk up stairs to get the receipt.

I put it in the car and glared at it. At least it was in a box. I kept my head down and skulked quietly to the customer service window.

Things went surprisingly well; no one stared at me, or made comments. The cashier didn’t call for assistance over the intercom and say, “Toilet seat return on aisle twelve." In fact, she was friendly, didn’t say anything sarcastic and didn’t sneer once. So really, in the end (no pun intended there), returning a toilet seat was no worse than returning anything else.

I thought that the most humiliating part of my day was over.

Silly me.