The other day, a friend of mine asked me to write a funny post about boobs. I thought I had written it, but my sister told me that I had only transcribed the conversation I had had with my friend about writing the story, so it didn’t count. In fact, she said that my readers were “gypped.” I have an uneasy feeling that “gypped” has something negative to do with gypsies. If any gypsies complain, I intend to print out directions to my sister’s house for the caravan to follow.

My sister went on to say that I still owed her and my ten readers a post about boobs, but she doesn’t use the word “boobs,” so she said “bosoms.” I told her I’d be happy to write about “bosoms,” if she could supply me with a time machine that would transport me to the 1920s, or whenever the heck it was that people said “bosoms.”

I don’t particularly like the word, “boobs,” either, but that might be because of Sister Marian Arlene, the nun I had in first grade. I remember her pulling my long hair and calling me a boob because I didn’t erase my part of the blackboard to her satisfaction. Back in the 1960s, “boob” meant idiot. I was very hurt and offended. But maybe she was prescient.

For example, I fell on my head today. Hard. It happened in my company’s office. Everyone had left for the day and I was alone.

We are moving next week, so some of our things are packed up and some are not. The clock that I depend on has been packed. I feel its absence every time I arrive and every time I leave. I no longer know if I’m late for work when I get there, or whether I’ve allowed enough time to catch my train home.

Since I was the last one to leave today, I had to check that all of the 22 windows were shut, and perform other closing-up chores. When I got to the lounge, I discovered that there was a clock hanging on the wall. Nobody will be using the lounge because the couch was moved out today, so I reached up and removed it from where it was hanging.

Then I took the clock out to the main office to hang it where the missing clock used to be. I couldn’t reach the nail on the wall in this room, however, so I grabbed the nearest chair and climbed up on it while holding the clock. I leaned up, and over the printer, to attach the clock to the nail on the wall. Just as I almost reached the nail, my chair shot out behind me and I fell forward. I tried to break my fall by reaching for the printer but, instead, I crashed into the floor. I’m not sure what hit first, but I have a large bump on the right side of my head and a bruise on my left hip. After I fell, I couldn’t move for a while. I just sat on the floor holding my head and listening to the plastic clock spinning like a top. I kept thinking that I couldn’t function until that clock stopped spinning.

When the clock finally fell over, I lifted my head and saw that I was surrounded by white fragments of something. A lot of white fragments. The printer and the clock were both black and the shards were white, so what did I break, besides myself? With great relief, I discovered that I had knocked over the trash can that contained shredded paper. After cleaning up the paper and righting the trash can, I picked the clock up and put it on top of the printer. Then I dusted my footprints off the black cloth seat of the chair that I had stood on. The chair with wheels.

I finished closing the office and left for Grand Central to catch my train. It didn’t occur to me until I got home that I might have internal bleeding in my head. I feel fine, but you never know.

Many years ago, when we were young, my mother told my siblings and me a story about her maternal great-uncle. I think his name was Otto. Otto was a little boy and one Christmas Day, he went outside and some roughneck kid hit him on the head with a bag of walnuts. Otto returned to his house and told his mother that he was tired. He lay down under the Christmas tree and never woke up. This story made us very sad.

I hope I wake up tomorrow, because nobody is going to be sad if they hear that I stood on a chair that had wheels and fell on my head. They might call me a boob, though. And they’d be justified, unlike Sister Marian Arlene.