Everybody's Fault but Mine

It was everybody’s fault but mine. It was the building architect’s fault. It was the band director’s fault. It was my music teachers’ fault. I was my dad’s fault. It was that nosy lady’s fault. If not for those people, none of it would have ever happened or been so bad.

I spent my freshman year at Ricks College. I took a handful of music classes, so I spent quite a bit of time in the Snow building. The Snow building seemed like a normal building on the outside, and it seemed like a normal building on the inside as well, but on closer inspection it was a horror story waiting to happen. Someone designed the staircase with a hand rail on one side. Beneath the handrail there was a series of panes of glass that were all about 8 feet long and 3 feet tall. The glass panes hung beautifully and decoratively all along the stairway. So, it was the architect’s fault for designing the stairway the way he did.

At the bottom of the stairs on that particular day, the band was practicing. The horn players, the woodwind section, the percussionists, and everyone else in the band all added up to about 100 people. They didn’t usually practice in the large lobby area of the Snow building, but they were there that day. I can only imagine that it was the band director’s decision to practice there, on that day, at that particular point in time. So, it was the band director’s fault for having so many people present.

I only had a few music classes, but for some reason I had a lot of books. It seemed like each music class found it necessary to have three or four books instead of just one. I usually wore a backpack to carry my plethora of literature, but for some reason I didn’t wear it that day and I had to carry them, the whole stack. So it was my music teachers’ fault for assigning so many books.

I have a funny build. My siblings say that I’m like an orangutan because of my long arms, but that doesn’t really fit. The thing is, I have really long legs too, so with my long arms and my long legs and average sized torso, I’m really more like a daddy long leg spider than an orangutan. I get that from my dad. And because of my long legs, I just hate taking stairs one at a time. I feel like I’m taking baby steps if I do it that way, so I make better use of my stair time by going two or three steps at a time. Well, I used to, anyway, up until that day. So, it was my Dad’s fault for giving me those long legs.

And that’s where I found myself on that cold day, walking to class. When I went to class, there was hardly anybody in the lobby area. I had no problem ascending the stairs two at a time. I had no problem carrying my stack of books. On my way down, however, my daddy long legs failed me. I couldn’t see in front of me very well because of the mountain of books in my arms and, descending two steps at a time, I missed one. You would think that stepping too far forward while going down the stairs would make me fall backward, but no, I fell straight forward. Correction… I launched forward. I landed on my stomach near the bottom of the stairs and bounced the rest of the way down. The worst part of it all was that my head hit the glass pane under the railing, which sounded a deafening BONG! I guess it was fitting for that particular railing to be in the music building because it resonated exactly like a Chinese gong. So those who didn’t sense me with their eyes, did sense me with their ears.

A little advice to anyone who wants to help someone like that… if the only thing hurt is the person’s dignity, leave them alone. The lady who came running over to make made sure to keep everyone’s attention was on me with her, “Oh my goodness. Are you okay? Are you sure? What happened? Are you sure you’re okay? Do you hurt anywhere?” And she followed me all the way out of the building.

I just wanted to go to class then get back home- easy as that. But no, everyone else had to go and doom me to an afternoon of uncoordinated acrobatics. It was everyone’s fault but mine. True story.