Trips, Slip-ups and Spills:  Welcome to College

My first month at college I dropped three trays of cafeteria food and broke several dishes in the process.  One of those times it wasn’t exactly my fault.  I was in line behind this massively tall guy, who towered over my 5’ 3” self, as I held my breakfast tray with a heaping bowl of Fruit Loops in front of me.  He turned around abruptly and I got an up close encounter with his belly button as he walked right into me.  Either I needed to start walking around with an orange flag sticking a couple feet out of my back pack or this guy needed to communicate with ground control more often.  My tray folded into me sending silverware and an empty cup to the floor, which signaled every student within a five mile radius that Amy had blown it again.  The only thing that didn’t immediately fall to the floor was my bowl of Fruit Loops which landed squarely on my chest so when I folded the tray back down the colorful little rings slithered down my shirt to my shoes where they cemented like little cheap bedazzled jewels.

There are a few ways one can choose to respond when a cafeteria full of people has just witnessed you blunder.  You can run crying from the room as applause erupts.  You can call down the fires of heaven to disintegrate you on the spot.  You can walk away quickly, pretending nothing happened.  Or, you can take your bow as you stoop to help in the clean up and then mentally smack yourself in the forehead every time you recall what happened later, which is what I choose to do every time.  As lookers on there are also choices in how to react.  The slow clap is a popular response to tray dropping as is a moment of stunned silence.  But my personal strategy is offering empathy, which is what I’m doing now to all those who have found themselves standing in front of a tray full of fallen cafeteria food.  I am with you.

As a clumsy freshman I dreamed of the day that I would be an upper classman, full of grace and dignity, and these unfortunate little slip ups would be funny anecdotes banished to the past.  Well, I’m here to testify that though there are lessons learned (like dry your shoes and hold a railing before attempting to descend the stairs in the winter, wear sensible shoes when it rains, carry some kind of portable stain banishing device AT ALL TIMES or at least don’t get the manicotti while wearing a white sweatshirt and no talking on cell phones while carrying your tray – it just doesn’t work) there is no guarantee that with lessons comes mastery of even walking and thinking at the same time.  It was the end of last semester.  I had just nailed a history final and I was on top of my academic world as I made my way from Boebel to the Student Center for a celebratory Cream Ice.  Diana Ross belted “I’m Coming Out” in my MP3 player’s ear buds and the words had new meaning to an overly confident me.  “I have arrived” I thought to myself, “after three long years I’ve got this college thing completely under control” but my thoughts were interrupted by a jarring collision with a sapling.  Yes folks, in the wide openness of the courtyard between Boebel and the Student Center I found a tree to run my cocky self into.  I got a good laugh out of it and so did about 75 others who were traversing the courtyard but had somehow managed to avoid the stationary objects.

Why am I telling you all this?  That would be because I witnessed a younger me falling down almost an entire flight of stairs in front of God and everybody during the lunch rush at the Student Center on one of the rainy days last week.  Fortunately she managed not to take anybody else with her, but unfortunately she about got trampled by the indifferent crowd who barely managed to step over her before proceeding down the stairs toward lunch.  I recognized the mortification in her eyes and the uncertainty of how to react.  Honey, wherever and whoever you are, I am with you.  It might not get better but it makes a heck of a story.  And to the rest of you who stepped over her, I know hunger is a compelling sensation, but the next time the stairs are a little bit wet or your journey with your tray filled with obstacles, don’t fall because I’m just waiting to start the slow clap.