So here are some of my minor fails. Highly exaggerated to maintain your interest, of course, but nonetheless still slightly funny...I hope.
So I went skating a few months ago. On these massive beasts called Skorpion Skates, which, I have to say, are fantastic skates which can be bought if you click on the picture. Because I used my awesome HTML skills to make it a link. I would like to stop and mention that I also
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used my awesome HTML skills to make this text appear beside the picture instead of beneath it. Yay for tables. And learning to code. Anyway,enough of the bragging, because success is not nearly as funny as failure. Actually, let's pause and talk about words for a minute. Particularly words like epitome and segue. Because illustrated above is an excellent segue from success back to failure, if I do say so myself. |
A week or two prior to my sudden leap of understanding, I started wondering how one was meant to spell "eh-pit-oh-me". I was in my early teens, and concluded that I must have read the word SOMETIME.
So I kept an eye out for it whilst reading. I eventually came across the written word "epitome", and, after a few minutes wondering (not for the first time, I'm sure) what an "epi-tome" was, I finally clicked.
My revelation induced flailing whilst spouting incoherent babble (more on that later) continued for several minutes before I finally got a hold of myself. Unfortunately, because I was saying "epitome...is epitome", but pronouncing the word the same both times, nobody had the slightest clue what I was on about. They all just nodded politely whilst slowly backing away.
Side note: my tutor thinks nobody uses the word "whilst" anymore. Well, I do. Frequently. Including when texting. So there.
Second side note: I love the word "flail". It is possibly my favourite word in the whole world. It's like failing, but with arm movements.
My discovery of the word "segue" happened the other way around. As often happens with me, I use words in writing which I don't actually know how to pronounce. So, a word like "segue", which I know the meaning and correct usage of, but not the pronunciation, presents a problem for me when I want to use it in conversation. Which happened recently.
My pronunciation, I believe, was something along the lines of "seg-you". Luckily, only minimal laughter was involved and a quick search confirmed that the correct pronunciation was, in fact, "seg-way". But what's a mispronounced word when you're among friends.
It was among the same friends that my other recent bout of revelation-induced flailing whilst spouting incoherent babble, this time related to a poem I'm rather fond of, called "The Uncertainty of the Poet", which is about being a poet and features bananas (this is a key point relating to the flailing). It's a fantastic poem and I highly recommend looking it up. But anyway, I discovered in my friends' art book a picture titled "The Uncertainty of the Poet" and it featured...wait for it... bananas (among other things)! I was so excited. It took me about five minutes just to become coherent enough to explain why I was flailing. Before that all they could get out of me was "poet...bananas...oh my gosh oh my gosh...". It was much more exciting at the time than it seems to you guys now.
So, now that I've failed at being coherent, I should probably finish the story about the humiliation of skating. So, I had my Skorpion skates on, and I was going pretty well. Skorpion skates are amazing to skate with, and (almost) impossible to fall off with. They're stable enough that you can't fall sideways, but you can, if you don't lean forwards, or if you lean backwards just the slightest bit, fall down on your bum. Which is exactly what I did. Hard. In someone's driveway.
Concluding I had probably broken my tailbone, I proceeded to gingerly crawl over to the grass beside the footpath, out of the way of any cars attempting to enter their respective houses. Fighting back tears, I ripped the skates off and gently got to my feet. Skates slung over my shoulder, I walked home, regretting more with every step my fateful decision that mere feet were not good enough and I had to have wheels.
For the rest of the week, I could not sit or lie down without considerable pain. And, most disappointingly, I didn't even get a decent bruise to show for it.
I DID go back out on my skates. Once. With a pillow pet (I have a pillow pet. Yes, I'm 18. I have no shame.) strapped to my tailbone area.
I did not fall again.
I also have not skated again since then.
There, I managed to finish at least one story. This started out with the intention of being about fails due to clumsiness, but mostly ended up being about linguistic fails instead. So I failed at writing a fail post. That takes talent.
Anyway, until next time,
Juno,
xoxox
P.S. Remind me to tell you about my "pet" ducks sometimes. And my fascination with sloths. And my other pets. I've had a lot of pets.
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