The Spectacular Falling Jessie

What with Amalah telling her terrifying tale of her fall yesterday morning, and Miss Doxie reminiscing (wonderfully, I might add. That is one awesome and way more incredible than I could ever dream about coming up with entry) about her stories from the past 2 years (including those in the category “Times I Fell”) I thought I do both.

No, not fall.

Reminisce about a time I fell. Spectacularly, even.

It all started on a bright October day, my freshman year of college. I was eighteen and stupid, especially about fashion, but for some reason I was rushing three sororities. This was the last night of rush and we were all decked out in our very best black dresses, because that’s what you did for “Preference Ceremonies” (the last night of rush). You wore a fancy black dress and went around to fancy rush parties hoping that you weren’t so dorky that you wouldn’t get in.

I was dorky enough to only be invited to two preference ceremonies, even though you could be invited to a total of three. And both of the houses I was invited back to were “small houses” which meant, basically, the unpopular sororities.

Man, I was a dork.

Anyway, since I was not one for fashion those days (regular day-to-day wear for me was stuck in the grunge-era style of a band tee over a long-sleeved tee with baggy jeans and Chucks) I was really not one for fancy fashion, including fancy high heeled shoes of death.

I want to note now, that I quickly got over the grunge phase and turned into the fabulous high-heel-shoe-wearing mid-west fashionista (meaning about 3 years behind either coast) that I am today. I like to think of myself as a somewhat snazzy dresser.

(Just the fact that I said snazzy is pretty bad – maybe I’m not as great as I think I am. Oh well.)

Okay, back to the story. So there I was, all dressed up in my fancy black dress and black high heeled shoes of death, waiting to go to my first house of the night. They were driving us around in busses (oh so fancy, no?) and we were all jittery and nervous, because tonight decided our future college experiences. Would we get into a “good” house?

For me? No. At least not one of the ones that everyone considered a good house, but it turned out to be a good house for me, just not a “cool” house.

As we pulled up to the first house, I noticed a scene outside. The house I was going to was right between two fraternity houses, one of which was a “cool” fraternity. We stopped in front of the “cool” fraternity, and my level of nervousness shot through the roof. Not only did I have to walk in high heels in a fancy dress, I had to do it in front of cute boys who were picking us apart as we got off of the bus. (Assholes!)

I steadied myself as I walked down the aisle of the bus, stepped onto the first step, got my foot caught in the hem of my dress as I went for the second step and face-planted on the sidewalk about 3 feet below.

In front of all the cute boys.

Man, did it hurt too. My knee and hands were all scraped up. The “Rho Chi” or Rush Counselors ran to my side to make sure I was okay (although I’m sure they all laughed about it later – I know I would have. There’s nothing funnier to me than someone falling. It’s why I love “America’s Funniest Home Videos” so much.) I was fine, and nothing hurt worse than my ego at that moment, so I stood up, brushed myself off, ignored the hot guys laughing at me, and went into the house. I got a couple of bandages, cleaned myself up, and became determined to forget that this every happened.

And I kind of managed to for a while, until one day at a rehearsal for Greek Week events. We just happened to be paired up with the fraternity house where I fell. This was about a year later, and one of the brothers kept saying I looked familiar.

Then one day he figured it out.

“Aren’t you that girl that totally bit it off the rush bus?”

Yeah, I am. Thanks for helping me to re-live the humiliation.

Luckily most of the guys who then remembered said they felt bad for me at the time, but it was too funny not to laugh. And they totally would have helped me if the Rho Chis hadn’t stepped in.

Like I said, I would have laughed at me too if it hadn’t hurt so much.

Tomorrow, as requested by karla: The Cheetos™ Story