This is an old story of March Madness that a few have hinted at me telling. Here goes.
I would practice pivoting over and over again when we had the basketball unit in high school. Left foot firm, right foot, step. Something like that and something I could do, which was really very important to a sixteen year old girl who could not do much of anything else in gym class. Grace and physical fitness were not my forte. Balancing on a balance beam? It didn’t happen. Hurdles? I may be the only girl actually capable of snagging her 1960’s one piece gym suit while trying to leap over it, dragging her tail behind her.
I did pretty well at basketball, however, and I could pivot. Basketball was the one activity where the teacher actually pulled me aside. A watershed moment. She said she was proud of me.
Pride cometh before the fall.
It was years later, in this All-American season known as March Madness. College hoops at its best. Tournaments. Excitement. Unexpected victories. Heartbreaking losses. March Madness reigned as I was deep in the throes of a local campaign and the family room was being carpeted.
Two workers moved back and forth, removing furniture. Paperwork in hand, a speech for a candidates’ forum playing out in my head, and stress building, I went to open the blinds. With a slight rise to get to the window, I used my left foot to step up, twisted the wand with my free hand to open the blinds, stepped back on my right foot, and proceeded to sink into the floor. A flash of pain, then bewilderment, as I realized I couldn’t move. No matter how well I pivoted, my foot wouldn’t budge.
Unbeknownst to me, Tom had pulled the floor grate off of the heating duct. I was stuck, up to my knee. I pivoted, left, then right, then back again, trying not to panic and laughing at how I must seem! No matter the practice in gym class, the excitement of March Madness, or the fact that two hefty workers kept walking past, paying not a whit of attention to me, I was stuck in the duct, hobbled at the knee, with nowhere to go.
I said, rather meekly “help”.
They kept working. “Help”!
Then, loudly, ” HELP“!
Two astonished carpet layers suddenly stared at me, wide-eyed and uncertain. What do you do when the lady of the house is stuck in the floor you are about to carpet, pivoting, no less. “Oh! Lady!” One tried to dial Tom’s office, but, didn’t understand my instructions. He grabbed his own cell phone, thrust it at me and said “here”. I dialed Tom’s number and rather calmly, considering my predicament, left him a message to please come home. There was a little problem.
The men tried to help me. They brought a chair, but, with one foot in the crawl space and the other on the step, I could only teeter on the brink. They pulled and twisted, to no avail. My leg, stuck to the knee, in a hole in the floor where the carpet would be.
In the midst of the tugging and pulling of my right leg, the door opened, and there was Tom. You can only imagine the look on his face as he opened the door and saw two strangers, kneeling, as if in prayer, at the foot of St. Penelope, patron saint of pivotal moments.
The carpet layers returned to their work and my trusted knight to the garage for foot extracting tools. Then, down he went, to the basement and through the rabbit’s hole into the crawl space. I could hear him moving about, underneath the floorboards, trying to find the devilish duct that had swallowed my foot. A few choice words and out he came – the wrong tools exchanged for the right. My foot was assessed as he carefully removed my shoe, then twisted and bent the duct and whatever else needed to set me free, gently pushing my leg back up to the family room, where it needed to be.
My shoe and small shoe size allowed my foot to fall through without a break. My leg was bruised in a colorful hue but I was still in one piece. The carpet was laid, I gave my speech, and I managed to win, while March Madness played out across the land. The heating duct, forever bent and mangled, grumbled and shook each and every time it forced hot air into the room.
I have often wondered what the carpet layers had to say as they drove out of sight.
Well, what lengths some people will go to for a bit of hot air!!
Oh Penny, yet again you’ve given me a hearty laugh at the end of my day. I do hope you collect your stories and publish them one day. I’m left with the feeling that you must have had a pretty dainty leg, to survive such an episode.
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Ha!
Glad to give you something to chuckle about, Juliet. I needed a laugh, if only at myself.
Thank you, Juliet. Someday . . . my leg(s) have been in some interesting situations, but, thankfully, still hold me up.
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A classic moment! It was fun to have you re-tell it.
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Thanks, Jennifer. It was fun for me to recall the fiasco. Those men are probably still talking about me! ha
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Oh, Penny, thanks for the laugh! I can only picture your predicament and start to giggle!
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Hi, Pam. You’re welcome. I know you can just imagine the scene. I’m glad to supply a few laughs now and then. tee hee
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What a great story and what hilarious pictures you put into my head! That sure sounds like something that had to hurt a lot but your sense of humor about it makes me think that maybe it didn’t hurt as much as it was just awkward.
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I know, Janet. It will be rough seeing me and not laughing, won’t it? I was, fortunately, not injured but for a few bruises and, yes, it was awkward,
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That story, Penny, is a keeper 😀 I have no doubt it is being repeated to grandchildren on carpet layers’ knees to this day. What a classic moment….
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Ha, ha! I can only imagine, Kate. If it happened today, it would have ended up on youtube!
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Very funny, Penny. A classic Penny moment. Sometime you should share your spectacular entrance when I introduced my “sophisticated big city college friend” to my “small town friends” at home. Thanks for the chuckle.
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I will, someday, Janet. That was an even funnier moment, as I had a bigger audience – and your poor mom! I will write it someday, and you can fill in the blanks. Glad to give you a chuckle.
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This is such a funny story Penny. Now I can’t wait for the one Janet has reminded you of !
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It was pretty comical, Joan, and, yes, I will have to tell the story of my grand entrance at Janet’s house when we were but college freshmen.
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My favorite is your lipstick on the glass-another funny Penny story. People are going to think of you as some what of a clutz…not me of course…..tee, hee….
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The lipstick on the glass was one for the books, wasn’t it? I’ll have to tell that one day. You don’t really think people with think I’m a clutz, do you? tee hee back
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[…] know I told you about my right foot getting stuck in the heating duct . It always makes me think of the Tom Hank’s movie, The Money […]
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