It was one stupid mistake that ruined my chance to play in the 2015 Diocesan soccer championship in 7th grade. As some of you may know, or may not know, I am a very clumsy person. I am that typical blonde stereotype, the dumb blonde, the girl who falls off of a curb and breaks her foot. Yes, that’s right. I fell off of a curb and broke my foot.

It was around 11:25 at my old middle school and that meant recess. Recess consisted of tag and gossip. Yeah, I know, childish right? Nonetheless that’s what we did. My whole grade consisted of ninteen kids, and ten of them were girls. So everyday the ten of us would split up into our own little groups and gossip.

But this day was different. For recess the school let us out to play on the blocked off street. The sun was bright and shining straight into my eyes. There was a cool breeze, but the temperature was 78 and rising. It was beautiful outside, so it was given that we had to run around and play tag. One of my best friends Abby was the tagger, and previously that day I accidentally spit water out in her direction, so I knew she was headed straight for me. I was speeding down the sidewalk with one thing on my mind, running as fast as a twelve year old possibly could.  I turned around suddenly to see if Abby was still on my trail, and she definitely was. She wasn’t stopping anytime soon.

As soon as I turned back around, I knew trouble was ahead. I’m not sure if it was the sudden turn or a bump in the concrete, but I went down. Whilst hitting the ground, my foot turned in a beautiful and graceful yet painful, torturous way. It was almost like a was a dancer spinning on her foot when within a split second one wrong move ended her graceful twirl. That’s when she heard a crack. At that moment the cool breeze turned into an excruciating and humid heat, the sound of laughter around me muffled, and the sight of Abby running towards me with a determined look turned into a worried one. That’s when the sound of a skin-crawling crack echoed through my ears. It sounded almost like the snapping of a jumbo chicken wing )weird comparison but that’s what I hear everytime I eat chicken wings).

While sitting on that road motionless and speechless, I thought of my soccer team . I shakily stood up, limped off to the sidewalk, and plopped down- still speechless. My friends came over to check on me and carried me to the office. From there I went to the hospital and was told the worst news out of the whole year, I had broken my foot. I was asked how it happened and nervously replied, “I ran off of a curb.” The nurse and my mother broke out in a mocking laughter, yet so did I. It was probably the most idoictic thing I’ve ever done, and I knew it.
Once I came back to school no one let me remotely close to the edge of a sidewalk, and it still remains that way now. Whenever anyone asked me how I broke my foot, I always said “just a blonde moment.” I don’t think a “blonde moment” truly exists or is even a thing, but it worked as a good excuse for a very clumsy girl like me.
My mom has always said, “You are lucky you are blonde.” I never knew what exactly she meant or why, but I found my answer on that unfortunate day known as the Crack Heard ‘Round Aspinwall.