This past Saturday, I sprained my ankle.
The End. See you next post...
No, wait. There's more to this story. How did I sprain my ankle? Well, let me tell you, you impatient person: We were babysitting a pair of diabolical children, and we had taken them to a neighborhood playground, in which there was an extremely dangerous jungle gym: seriously, this thing was a heap of rusted pig iron covered with jagged edges, poorly discarded hypodermic needles, and fresh human waste. The kids loved it.
I made the mistake of going on the jungle gym, and as I was getting off (no, not like that you perverts), I misplaced my step. My ankle then made the most horrible sound (imagine fresh celery being ripped in half), after which I fell and bruised my knee. Do I have your sympathy now? Good. My ankle hurt...a lot. I could hardly breathe. I thought I was going to vomit.
I eventually made my way to the Emergency Room dressed as a ninja, just to make sure there wasn't anything broken or misaligned. I went to Somerville Hospital, which is actually a lovely little place located on Highland Street between City Hall and Davis Square.
As I was being checked in, the woman taking my information had to ask me thousands of questions, including my ethnicity. She said that the data was for the federal government, e.g., if enough people of a particular group patron the hospital, they can receive federal money to obtain translators, etc. Even though I was born here in the United States of Lower Canada—tee-hee—she wanted to know what I consisted of anyway, even though I doubt too many people from my ancestral homelands are coming to America these days, which brings me to my next almost-related topic:
Earlier in the summer, I took a DNA test to see what ethnicities are contained within my genetic goo. I knew some of what was inside of me (besides dark, creamy chocolate and nougat). I have relatives—dead ones—from the England, the Ireland, and the Poland that I actually sort of knew and really knew, so you can imagine my surprise when I received my results...which said that I was mostly Danish, with a healthy portion of Englishness. I was like, "Danish? Who's from Denmark?" That's going to send me on some sort of quest. Despite my very Polish last name, I'm about one percent Polish. Hm...Ham.
