The Ripple Effect: Pride Cometh Before the Fall

or: So You’ve Fallen on Your Face . . .

By Chris Broquet
(This is The Ripple Effect, occasional musings by the person who may or may not be the blind woodchuck. Full disclosure: I am not a Republican. Or a woodchuck.)

Nine bags of groceries—three pounds of potatoes, a jar of salsa, a bottle of wine, three giant Suma citrus fruits, a half-gallon of milk, a quart of Half & Half, two cartons of eggs (Buy One, Get One Free!), a bag of carrots and two lamp shades from World Market that I had bought earlier in the day—were all in the back seat.

Oh, and two bags of Jay’s Lightly Salted Curly Wave Potato Chips. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the price of snacks lately, but a salty impulse buy that used to be a couple of bucks can now be as much as seven dollars a bag; unless you have a grocery app that will you allow you to buy them for $3.99, the only drawback being you must then buy twelve of them. But this was Super Bowl weekend and the sales were plentiful, so when I saw two bags of Jay’s for $5.00, they immediately went into my cart, and then the backseat for the ride home.

I live in the city, which means I park on the street. I am quite adept at finding spots right in front of my house because my car is Fun Sized, but on that day, the street was inexplicably filled with cars bearing out of state license plates. I could understand there being one from Indiana, but Vermont? What possible reason could this person have had to drive thousands of miles cross country and then park in front of my house? I ended up across the street about two blocks west.

I contemplated the pile of bags in my back seat. I am not quite as buff as I used to be and the thought crossed my mind that a bubbe cart would be very helpful for moments like this. But it was slushy after several weeks of freeze and thaw and the wheels probably would have gotten stuck and anyway I didn’t have one, so if the groceries were going to get inside, it would be under my own power.

I immediately vetoed the idea of making two trips. That would take at least an extra five minutes out of my busy schedule and who had time for that? Here I must point out that I am retired and spend several hours drinking coffee and scrolling through Bluesky before I even change from my pajamas into my sweatpants, so time was of the essence.

Because I am a lover of the planet, I usually bring a few cloth totes when shopping. But for that day I had only one because I was not anticipating the snack sales. The tote was jammed full of all the breakable stuff like wine and salsa. I also had six or seven of the Jewel plastic bags which get thinner every time they raise the tax on them; each had several small tears starting in them from getting caught on the shopping cart, but also had those convenient hole handles that could be stretched over your coat sleeve so you could load up your forearms with the lighter items, leaving your hands free to do the heavy duty lifting of the tote and the milk, because why on earth would you need your hands free just to cross the street? And of course, the two giant awkward bags full of lamp shades, which were very light so they were hooked on my elbows. Sherpas on their way up Everest from base camp carry fewer items.

I had almost made it across the street when I realized this was a very bad idea, but I had momentum on my side and hoped it would propel me down the last block. This was a perfectly valid thought, until I hit the uneven half inch concrete rise that separates the road from the alley which was covered in snow and ice and a brown slurry which I can only assume was liquifying dog poop from the people who think you don’t have to pick it up if no one is watching. 

As you get older, it sometimes feels like time has speeded up. Weren’t you just in your fifties a few minutes ago, with cat-like reflexes, able to leap over puddles and right yourself as soon as you could feel a stumble coming on, waving it off with a chuckle about what a klutz you were? When we still had all the free plastic bags we wanted and democracy?

But in this incident, the fall happened in slow motion. I could feel myself going down, and the voice in my head said, in a gravely, slo-mo tone, ooooh sshhiiiiitttt.

My right knee hit the sidewalk first, then my right hand, which was suddenly free of bags. And then there was a peculiar break in the time space continuum, as this entire collapse became a scene from The Matrix. I stood outside my body and watched myself go down on my knees with one hand in the slush, and actually had a moment to think well, that could have been so much worse! And then my face hit the concrete.

Most of the impact was on my cheekbone, with my glasses getting jammed into my face, but I couldn’t tell where else I had hit because there was snow and a bunch of other stuff around my head. I sat up, dazed, and saw my neighbor running over, wearing gym shorts and slippers. He works from home and his desk faces sliding glass doors that look out onto the street, so he has become the Gladys Kravitz of the neighborhood. Just last week, he had breathlessly recounted to me the day he saw seven cars smash into each other when our street had turned into an unsalted luge run. As he gathered all the stuff that had escaped from the bags and helped me up, he chattered, “I saw you go down! I saw the whole thing!” I remember thinking he seemed overly excited about this but I was still grateful to have a nosy neighbor who was looking out for me. 

I was also embarrassed and dripping wet, and mostly just wanted to get into my house so I could see what I had done to my face, which was now stinging like a son of a bitch. I reassured him I was fine and did not have a head injury, making a joke where I called him by his wife’s name. He looked uncertain for a moment and then laughed. I dragged the bags into the house, where I flung them on the floor like this whole thing had been their fault.

I had a bruise on my cheek and a welt that would soon swell and turn bright red, but considering the fact I had hit the sidewalk with the force of 7 Gs, it didn’t make sense that there were no other cuts or bruises. I grabbed a bag of frozen peas I had bought less than an hour ago and held it to my face as I started to take inventory of what I assumed were my destroyed groceries.

One by one, I pulled out the unbroken bottle of wine, the not smashed jar of salsa, the uncrushed Suma oranges and the miraculously intact eggs. Everything was covered in a thin coating of Half & Half, which had leaked but the carton still contained most of the liquid. How was this even possible?

I was grateful I had the foresight to buy some comfort food to help me through this upsetting incident, so I ripped open the Jay’s potato chips and was dismayed to find the entire bag of chips pulverized. Here was the destruction I had been anticipating. The second one was even worse—they were practically mashed potatoes. Not just broken like the store bagger had put the milk on top of them, but in tiny mushy shards too small to capture even the slightest bit of onion dip.

And if you looked very carefully, you could almost see the imprint of the face of a person carrying nine grocery bags who had fallen on top of them and probably prevented a devastating head injury.

Jay’s Lightly Salted Curly Wave Potato Chips saved my life.

• • •

The Blind Woodchuck is watching the Olympics and will have thoughts on that soon.