Ouch

I had a very easy route today, one I hadn't done in a while, near NW Military and Wurzbach Pkwy.

So I'm flying along at maximum walking speed, when I failed to notice a fissure in the sidewalk. I caught my right foot on a 3-inch tall slab of broken sidewalk and went down.

It actually felt like someone first hit my foot with a bat, and then like the earth itself became vertical and slammed into me. I hit so hard it knocked my hat off. Of course I dropped everything, but those handhelds are built tough so it wasn't damaged.

The brunt of it went into my right knee, but I also have bruises and aches in my right hand, right elbow, and right shoulder. My knee is swollen a little, my wrist and shoulder are stiff. I'm gonna be hurting tomorrow.

In my previous job, which was much worse*, I had to actually try and train newbies to do what I did. Since I believe in being brutally honest, I often told them something like this:

Be very careful. Be so careful you think you're becoming paranoid. It won't matter. Being careful to the point of paranoia can delay you getting hurt, but eventually, you are going to get hurt. All you can do is put it off as long as possible and stay alert so that maybe you can minimize it when it happens. But there's no "if." There is only "when."

Today I was in a nice neighborhood, where the people said "good morning" instead of just scowling at you. Where the streets and sidewalks were (mostly) clean, and the meters weren't buried under garbage. I relaxed and didn't notice a broken sidewalk in front of me. I momentarily forgot that there is no "if." There is only a "when."

*Previous job: I had to actually go into people's back yards. If you don't think back yards are death traps, try going into about 400 back yards in one day which you have never been into before.