My Middle Name Is Certainly NOT Grace.

I am not graceful. Whenever I accidently don't sit in my chair but sit on air instead, or my ankle is almost broken by my incorrect heel-usage, or I fall down a mountain and land on a tree, or I try to move my chair like a train but it snags the carpet and I do a half circle through the air and get stuck in between my desk and the floor, or when I am laughing SOOOOO hard that I get all sweaty and have to pee and I run out of the classroom, etc. When these things happen, I laugh jovially and with a charming smile I look up at the person closest to me, flip my hair and tell them in a sultry voice "My middle name is grace, you know?" And I almost wink. But I don't.

This is a defensive mechanism.

My middle name is not Grace. It's Alyse.

Also, I am not saying this because I actually believe I am in any way graceful.

It's a defense mechanism. (Something to do with saying the exact opposite of what you really mean.)

This realization was confirmed Saturday. I can go a couple months convincing myself that I can be lovely and eloquent; then moments come along that....DESTROY ALL LADY-LIKE PROGRESS.

And now I present: One of Shelby's completely ridiculous embaressing stories that happen frequently, but bring much joy and laughter to all who occupy the same relative space.

Once upon a time, Hannah and I play this game called Iron Chef. It's wonderful. Saturday morning we had this completely charming new friend of mine come and play with us! Secret Ingredient: Bananas. After battling for the banana cream pudding in the closet and throwing flour on each others backs, I pulled through and won. Woo! We then decided to sit on the sun-kissed roof and discussed Dumbledore taking the light out of the lamp post across the street with his Deluminator. It was perfect time of day to frolick through a meadow. So, in the sunset we skipped and laughed in a meadow. With some daisies. Then we pet a llama and it almost kissed my friend. We traveled to the top of the valley and let the cool breeze blow through our hair.

Everything was going swimmingly. I felt pretty. I felt smart. I felt witty. We went on adventures. It was sunny and blue. What could go wrong right?

We are then cordially invited to a SUMMER/GRADUATION BASH! We decide to drop by. Fashionably late, of course. This is where we went wrong.

At first things are fine. We played some soccer and jumped on the tramp. Then the hostess pulls together a game of Wiffle Ball. (Baseball with one of those plastic holey red balls and a really small field). Progressively through the day my digestive system is working, as digestive systems do, and in the middle of the game I realize I REALLY have to go to the bathroom. So I wait for the teams to switch from being up to bat to playing the field. This time arrives and I tell everyone to wait for just a minute as I quickly relieve myself. As I am in a wonderful mood, I don't want to keep people waiting, and I am slightly distracted; I RUN up the porch stairs and through the open door into the house.

In reality, that doorway had two doors. One was open. One was a screen.

SMACK.

That is the noise created when I ran, RAN, into the screen door.

RIP.

That is the noise of the screen door ripping in half because the force of my weight plus the momentum of my body was too much to handle.

Eeeeeeeerggggphm.

That is the noise of me falling onto the floor in the middle of the kitchen with the hostess' family waiting inside.

HAHAHAHA.

That is the noise of everyone laughing at me.



...At least I didn't pee my pants.



I begged for forgiveness.

Cried laughing for a while.



Then fell into a thorn bush and ripped a bleeding gash into my leg.





My middle name is NOT Grace.