Grocery Splash

This blog is in response to a story from someone who just went riding down a Class V river after having only experienced a III. They we're outfitted, oriented and provided with killer pictures of them taking the falls on a river near the Columbia Gorge. His story was entitled Birthday Splash.


There is a grocery store about 5 minutes from my house. I've ridden the aisles many times. One evening, about a week ago, Iris, my 9-yr-old daughter and I were cruising down the aisles together. No helmets or orientations(shouldn't we say ASIANtations these days?"). Only the sound of fresh values echoing down the corridors and a shopping cart to hold onto.

We looked for, but could not find a 2025 button-style battery(ba-tree in Utahn) in the regular spot. As we approached the cashier, I inquired as to the availability of other than what was stocked on the shelf. She ventured that the pharmacy might carry such a battery and we agreed that she'd start ringing up the goods while I checked. I handed Iris my key chain for my FRESH DISCOUNT(Jack it up 10$-take off 5$) and was off.

Much to my chagrin, I came up empty and headed back to my dutiful spot at the 10-key.

Two steps from Line 5 I lose traction. Now I'm wearing rubber sandals. Insert funny slip-slip-slip kettle-drum ka-kannnng cartoon noise here. In reconstructing the humiliating defeat at the hands of gravity, I ask Iris, who had paid no fee to see this, what happened--How did I land?

I started to do the Chinese splits. As I drop to my right knee, my left leg was doing its own instinctual "Curly Joe--whoopwhoopwhoop" to end up forward. I end up in a hurdlers position on the floor. Can I just add here that I'm 6'-5", 3 bills? With what is now a worm's eye view, I see a trail of water running the entire length of the store in front of every cashier.

I couldn't assign any type of Roman numeral rating to this body of water. I can only say that Grocery Falls AND my fall had NO CLASS whatsoever.

I bloodied my knee, strained my hammie and lower back. They're saying "Stay where you are!" as my be-denimed backside is soaking up the next puddle over. The lady who filled out the report twice said "Yeahhhh, those kind of shoes slip a lot...". YEAH!!--WHEN YOU ADD WATER!! I don't see a lifeguard on duty here! There's a reason wooden matches are on aisle 16 and the gas station is down the streEEeet.... The store has assured me that they'll cover my ER visit and "take care of things". This happened right under a security camera, but methinks the photo journal of this adventure may go missing.

On the bright side of things, the bagger probably had a great laugh watching my feet replace my head from his vantage point and the divot I made was quickly filled with ice and energy drinks, so no big deal.