One Finger Salute

Have you ever watched someone fall, stumble or trip and found it to be hilarious? I hope I'm not the only person who finds joy in watching these things happen. I mean, I don't want to see anyone really hurt themselves. But witnessing a nice little stumble in the middle of my day can really lift my spirits. It let's me know that even people wearing suits and carrying briefcases can be human and do embarrassing things. Even if you have perfect hair and just bought a boat, you can twist your ankle and rip your pants at any minute. 




The worst public fall I ever witnessed was back in 1991 at the Fox Theater in Spokane, Wa. I will never forget it. I took my girlfriend at the time, to the movies and when we got there we were one of the last people to find seats. There were a couple open seats way at the top of these incredibly steep stairs. To this day I have yet to find stairs that steep. It was really strange. Anyways, I was carrying two buckets of popcorn and decided to scurry up the stairs faster by skipping every other stair. You know how guys do that sometimes? Yeah well after about my fourth "hop" I stumbled and although I caught myself before falling back down the stairs of death, popcorn had shot out of BOTH buckets like a strange double barrel popcorn gun. I heard a group "moan" that came from the group of people near me. I just smiled like a jack ass and walked up the rest of the stairs slowly until I finally arrived at my destination carrying 2 half empty buckets of popcorn. My girlfriend looked angry. 

We aren't even to the good part of this story yet.....

After about 20 minutes, we are enjoying the beginning of our movie. The lights are off and it is fiercely dark in the theater. All of a sudden, all the way across the theater we hear what sounds like a large man falling down stairs. I focus my eyes in the darkness and I'll be damned if there wasn't a large man falling hard down several of the steep stairs that I had just conquered. But he wasn't falling "up" the stairs like I did, he was falling "down" the stairs with much momentum and the laws of gravity working against him. To this day, almost 25 years later I can still see head, feet, head, feet, head.....and so on. He was making a horrible sound each time he finished a full somersault. The entire crowd in that full theater burst out in laughter. Almost like we were all holding in too much laughter and just needed something to help us get rid of some of it. When he finished his Olympic worthy floor routine, he stood up and faced the crowd and lifted both hands high in the air revealing only one finger on each hand. Then he yelled "F*CK YOU!!!"

I've never been back to that theater, ever.