It probably served me right. I’m that person who thinks movie clips and TV commercials of people falling or walking into walls is funny.
And so it went with me personally one fateful day at the airport. It was our first family flight in a few years. I had packed my weekend stay of items in an old but sturdy SmartGear backpack.
Being the fashionable mother that I am, I paired that with a Target utility jumpsuit – army green, thank you very much – a black oversized sweatshirt under the jumpsuit and sneakers, and topped my look off with a loose, high-head bun that was perfect for this casual outing. I headed into the terminal with the family to get our tickets. I was feeling pretty good about myself, the trip, the day ahead of us.
Inside the airport ticket area, I was holding up the rear while my husband was a good five feet ahead of me working on printing out tickets. I realized I needed something out of one of our suitcases and asked my daughter to get it for me.
Being a teen, her first response wasn’t “Sure, Mom!” but rather an eye roll. I didn’t feel like arguing, so I decided I would do it myself. Subliminally noting the backpack was heavy, and the fact that my body isn’t quite as limber as it used to be, I slowly squatted down to reach the zipper dangling on the underside of the suitcase.
And that’s when it happened – the weight of the backpack pulled me, well, backward.
OMG, I thought, I’m actually falling! I felt a slow-motion descent as my mind disassociated because of the trauma I was about to experience, and I watched myself inch downward. So I did what any sane person would do – I grabbed for anything that was around me, which happened to be a free-standing, branded plastic informational sign which provided absolutely zero support. It simply folded and then sprung back.
There I was, falling back with nothing to stop me. I let out a “hooooooooooo” sound that I think I channeled from my grandmother, because Lord knows, I had never heard it from my mouth before. I was completely sprawled out on the floor.
I quickly hatched a plan to try get up without causing a scene while I lay there. I decided I’d turn on my side and prop myself up to end this nightmare. However, when I did that, I discovered that that oversized sweatshirt arm had slid over my hand and wrist. And for anyone who has ever walked in an airport can attest, those floors are polished and slick, which caused the material and tiles to work perfectly together in coaxing my right arm to smoothly jet out straight over my head like a Space-X launch. So I remained prone on the floor on my side, with the overweight backpack providing me a nice little back rest. All 5′5″ of me was completely sprawled out on the floor, again.
I simply couldn’t get up – perhaps partly because I was laughing, knowing how ridiculous I must have looked.
Where was my family in my time of need you might ask? Well, what I can tell you is a very sweet Haitian guy with the airlines came over.
“Miss are you OK?”
“Yes,” I laughed.
I think it was only peer pressure that caused one of my kids to actually own me and come over to help me stand up. I do believe my husband may have turned his back on me. I’m not sure where my son hid, and my other daughter was surely thinking, “Is this what happens when you become a mom??”
When I was back on my feet the kids started sheepishly laughing until they saw me bend forward laughing so hard I couldn’t stop. I was certain I gave that early morning crowd of travelers a show they would not soon forget.
What was probably a grand total of 45 seconds gave us something to laugh about the entire trip. We imagined the security guards replaying the video repeatedly! My kids mused, “Hey, Mom, you could go viral!”
I could have been upset at the whole thing because it made me feel old, helpless and ugly. But on that day, I instead took it in stride and I’m glad I did, because sometimes you just gotta laugh at yourself.
Several minutes later, we were in the security line and I could swear this woman was staring at me. I think she was trying not to laugh.
When wearing her work hat, Lisa Mozloom is a media and presentation training coach and PR practitioner at The M Network, but at home she is a woman passionate about raising three teens, loving her husband, and finding ways to extend hospitality and hope to those around her.