Before I continue this story, I feel it is important to explain the layout of the apartment I live in where this incident occurred. When you first walk in there is tile in front of the stairs to the second floor, and also leads into the kitchen. My room is up the stairs (follow the cookie crumbs). On this particular evening, I remember that my sister had just fought my niece to sleep. Being the insatiable caffeine craving lunatic I am, I decided to venture down the stairs to grab a drink. I remember taking each step very carefully so I didn't slide down the stairs and wake up the entire apartment complex with my bottom bouncing off the stairs and my fingernails scratching for dear life into the walls. I remember the feeling of triumph as I reached the bottom of the stairs without any unfortunate accidents. I then began walking confidently to the kitchen to get my brew. That was my mistake. I should never be confident in my abilities to coordinate movements that I don't monitor closely.
My niece had left one of those plastic trick-or-treating pumpkins on the floor. It was purple, and had a stupid grin on the front. As I was walking to the kitchen, my foot landed squarely in the pumpkin. I was suddenly launched into the kitchen with one leg stuck in that idiot pumpkin and the other in the air. I felt my eyes turn into exclamation points. I swear that my flight into the kitchen lasted forever. It was like in cartoons where they show the characters walking in front of the same backdrop forever. All I could see was the blur of the walls to my sides and the wall in front of me becoming larger. It seems like my arms were straight up in the air too, but that could just be part of how I imagined I looked. It's probably more likely that they were swinging wildly like a rogue windmill, but I dunno. Whatever.
In the kitchen, we have a little futon with a bit of empty space to the right of it, and then the dryer and washing machine (separated from the kitchen with extremely obnoxious sliding doors). I landed in the space between the futon and the dryer. I tried grabbing onto anything so I wouldn't crush my face against the wall and make me look like some sort of muppet. I tried grabbing the futon, which just bent my fingers in the wrong direction and then desperately tried grabbing for the dryer with my other hand. My attempt to grab the dryer only resulted in loud metallic banging and that screechy sound you make when your hand scrapes across the surface of anything slick. It sounded like those Nazgul things in the Lord of the Rings trying to play the drums while falling down a flight of stairs with pockets full of spoons. I crunched into the wall, pumpkin first (which made even more noise), and folded up like an accordion. All of this happened in about 5 seconds, and I probably laid there for a good 10 minutes just staring at the ceiling and contemplating where my life went wrong.
Once my eyes were no longer exclamation points, I slowly sat up and tried to figure out how I didn't wake anyone up. I thought maybe they were awake, but were paralyzed with fear, thinking our apartment just got smashed into by a low flying airplane. I remember asking my sister about it the next morning, but she informed me (through maniacal giggles and tears) that they hadn't heard anything. Luckily for me, they had apparently gone into a coma during my fight with the pumpkin. Ever since, I can't look at that stupid pumpkin without hearing it laughing at me. I know if it had arms, it would point and laugh at me. I'm pretty sure we keep it around so that my sister can look back and forth between the pumpkin and myself and grin with all of her teeth showing and her eyes in delighted little slits.
