Finally, redemption!

I’ve never been much of an athlete. I was always that poor, pathetic girl who was the next to the last one picked for teams in gym class. The only reason I was not picked dead last was because of Russell H. Russell was my saving grace – the least popular boy in school and somehow even less athletic than me.

And there would be the team captains – usually Billy M. or Shannon or Pam – the best athletes in my elementary school grade, who, faced with the horrible choice of me or Russell would slump their shoulders, roll their eyes and begrudgingly relent with a huge heaving sigh and say, “Kim.” They way they—particularly Billy M.—acted, you’d think they were being given the option to either chug puke or roll around in dog shit. I mean really. We’re talking dodgeball or maybe Steal the Bacon here. No one was going to go home with a Superbowl ring or anything, you know?

That left the other captain to pout about getting stuck with Russell, who as a defense mechanism to ALWAYS being picked dead last would actually try to sabotage the efforts of his team by kicking the ball deliberately out of bounds or just standing there and watching it whoosh by over his head. I at least tried. I sucked, but I tried.

But anyway, I digress. Today, I made up for all of that humiliation. Because today, I made a save that Gordon Banks himself would envy.

Loaf was sitting on the couch, which has become her most favorite pastime (and after today, it is totally blocked off with an impenetrable wall of coffee tables). I was sitting about five feet away on one of the aforementioned coffee tables (which prior to today’s reassignment of barring her from the couch barred her from opening the armoire and turning on the TV). Suddenly, she turned, back to the edge of the couch and tumbled—horribly—head first toward the floor. Even worse, her head was angled directly toward the hardwood floor vs. the area rug in front of the couch.

However, Mom was there to save the day. Even as visions of the ER and x-rays and stitches to the head flashed through my brain, with lightning quick speed and reflexes I didn’t even know I had, I leapt from the coffee table, lunged forward and caught her head in the palm of my hand inches before impact. It was a damn good feeling.

So, Billy M., wherever you are – take that. And suck it.