So Tess and I were having lunch (as we do most days), and she started telling me about seeing a woman literally fall on her face while crossing the street this morning. Actually, she had already told me about it earlier, because she called to tell me about it as soon as we were both in our repsective offices. She had to tell me because, as horrible as it was for the woman who fell, and as bad as she felt for the woman, she had to fight like hell to keep from laughing about it because, quite frankly, the concept of a grown adult who is in perfectly good health tripping and falling on their face or, even better, flat on their ass is just about the funniest gol-danged thing that there is, period, and she knew I'd understand.

This sounds mean, I know. I can't help it. It's funny when people fall down. I guess I should amend that. It's funny when people fall down and get back up again and the only thing truly injured is their pride. Of course I don't think it's funny when people get hurt; but the majority of times you see someone trip and fall, the worse thing they suffer is the humiliation of having fallen in front of witnesses.

I know this because I've tripped and fallen plenty of times, and there is always someone there to see it happen. This is why I don't wear high heels. I'm clumsy by nature anyway, and I have weak ankles. Combine those factors with a pair of pumps and it's just a disaster waiting to happen. When I do fall, no matter how much pain I'm in, the worst thing is always that people saw me do it. It's not like I don't give them something to watch, either. It's not like I fall and then bounce back up again and try to play it cool and salvage my dignity. No, you see, the concept of seeing a grown person fall down is so pervertedly hilarious to me that when I myself fall, I picture what it must have looked like to the bystanders as I went down, and I get so cracked up that I usually roll over on my back and just lay there laughing hysterically at the whole thing until someone comes to help me up. Then I usually get the giggles every time I think back on it. I know. I'm sick.

So she brought up this poor woman again at lunch, and we started talking about other grand falls we've witnessed, as well as falls we've both taken, and we both remembered a time in high school -- probably 10th grade -- when our school hosted a local gymnastics exhibition. We went to watch. Actually, we went to sit at the top of the bleachers and make fun of people, but we watched the gymnasts a little.

At one point, this girl went to do her thing, and she vaulted off of something and was supposed to do a flip or something, but she just belly-flopped onto the mat and just lay there for a seemingly endless time, and nobody came to check on her. As appalled and concerned as we both were, we were both also on the verge of losing it. All it took was me asking "isn't anybody going to check on her?" and Tess and I both cracked up. We were the only two people in the gymnasium laughing, and we knew it was inappropriate, and we felt awful for it, but we just couldn't help it. Base humor though it is, that girl bellyflopping onto the mat like that was just damn funny. We know. We're sick.

So then we started talking about embarrassing moments (none of which I'm going to bring up here, thankyouverymuch), and about how when something humiliating like that happens, people try to console you by saying "In a few years, nobody's going to remember this ever happened." But there we were, 12 years later, laughing about that poor little gymnast girl and her collossal belly-flop. And we could remember every single one of each other's humiliations going way back. We realized that, if someone does something embarrassing in front of one of us, not only will we always remember it, but we'll remind you every chance you get, and we'll tell new people you meet about it too. Slip up in front of one of us, and we'll keep the memory alive for years and years to come.

We know. We're sick.