But enough about Sally, let's talk about me.

The worst part of this story, the part that will make all of you once and for all write me off as some kind of degenerate genetic experiment gone wrong, isn't that it exposes me as a monumental klutz, or that it involves me injuring myself while buck-ass naked.

No, those things are just the buttercream icing on the warm chocolate cake of my perpetual slide into full jackassitude. The worst part of the story, as you can probably guess by now, involves my ass.

It was the morning after Christmas, 2001. Sally had already left for work, but I was enjoying a nice lie-in, because I worked for Santa. The great jolly fucker in red may be a slave-driver on Easter and President's day and Yom Kippur, but when Christmas rolls around, you by god get time off, because that is his fucking holiday.

The two things you need to know about the moment that I woke up are as follows:

1) I was buck naked. This is not (as some of you may have thought) because my bedroom was invaded in the middle of the night by a squad of gay Turkish jugglers who stripped me nude and ravaged me with bowling pins and live puppies, but because I sleep in the nude. I've mentioned that fact before, and as then, I will say again now, don't try to picture it. You'll only hurt yourself. The next time you see Sally, just give her a sympathetic hug and whisper in her ear "The horror... the horror..." She'll know what you mean. And probably start crying.

2) I had a desperate need to shit.

That's maybe my least favorite way to wake up. No wait a minute. The thing I wrote earlier? About being ravaged by jugglers? That would be my least favorite way to wake up, followed by "being eaten by a walrus" and "realizing I'm on fire." But the point is that waking up at T-minus 50 seconds 'till the skidmark apocalypse is definitely one of my least favorite ways to wake up. And so, not really wanting to paint the bed, I got up.

So there I was, about 15 seconds into the morning after Christmas, defensively clenching as I waddled down the hallway on still sleep-numb legs, my tiny man-junk utterly failing to dangle between my legs and a crust of half-dried drool on my left cheek.

I'll interrupt the narrative for just a second here to tell you that, when I started this blog a few years ago, I distinctly said to myself "I don't ever want to be one of those bloggers who is constantly trying to make themselves seem cool and impressive..." I'd say mission a-fucking-complished.

At the top of the steps, I made a fateful mistake. Instead of turning left, into the bathroom, I turned right, onto the landing at the top of the stairs. You see, the morning before (Christmas, for those of you who are only skimming this story looking for poop-references and retaining no real information) Sally had given me a book about Legos, and as faithful blog-buddies should know by now, I like to read while I shit. The book in question was still downstairs, under the tree, thus the right-hand turn onto the stairs.

So I went downstairs, got the book, and returned upstairs to the bathroom, where I enjoyed a nice leisurely morning grump while reading about Legos.

Or at least, that was the plan.

The part of the plan that involved going down the stairs went just fine, except that I did it on my ass with my legs sticking straight up in the air, while clawing at the brick wall and making monkey noises. And I did it a lot faster than I had intended too.

And so, there I was, not quite a minute into this new morning, buck naked in a tubby heap at the foot of the stairs, arms and legs splayed about, tiny man-junk still quite tiny, and in quite a lot of pain.

I'm a big guy, and when suddenly not supported by my legs, or, oh, anything else, I come crashing to the ground pretty fucking hard. So as I lay there nude on my living room floor, my first concern was determining if I had broken my legs. I figured I'd need them intact if I was going to crawl to a phone for help, or at least into the TV room so that I could die in front of the television. Much to my relief, the legs were intact and functional. Ironic, considering that they were somewhat less than functional a few seconds before when I had needed them to walk me down the fucking stairs.

Ok. Legs working. Arms working. Good so far. My head hurt because I'm pretty sure it had hit a few stairs on the way down, but as I lay there and took inventory, it seemed the only part of me absolutely screaming in pain was...

Oh go ahead, guess.

Yep. My ass.

My poor ass took a fucking beating, as I was basically sliding unhindered down the stairs on it. My stairs are hardwood. My floor too. This means no rug-burns (yay) but it also means my stairs are hard as hell, and there are some splinters (boo). Still, I'll take a banged up ass over broken legs any day.

At this point, through the buzzy haze of the adrenaline rush, I realize something important:

I still reeeeeeeeally have to shit.

There's a small half-bath on the first floor of my house, so I haul myself off the floor, and limp my throbbing ass over to get the Lego book. Even in the midst of a crisis, it's important to prioritize. After going through all of that, I by God was going to read that fucking book on the toilet.

And so I did.

The end result (pun intended) of my trip down the stairs was a bunch of scrapes and bruises, but nothing broken or otherwise seriously injured. Except my pride, which, since I clearly have none, wasn't much of a loss.

So of course when Sally came home at the end of the day, I told her the whole story of my gravity-assisted nude gymnastics, and showed her my black and blue ass. The she inspected the stairs and called me over, asking "Did you bleed on the steps here?"

I assured her that, while scraped up, I didn't really have any open wounds from my fall, and I seriously doubted that I'd actually bled on anything. I looked where she pointed though, and sure enough there was a small stain on the last step.

A small brown stain.

On the last step, where I had landed after falling down the stairs on my ass while reeeeeeeeeealy needing to shit.

Yeah, you guessed it. It should come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog. I shit on the stairs. Not a big shit, not a log or a nugget, more like a little brown kiss, but still... I shit on the stairs.

Go ahead and say it. I won't argue with you. Utterly unfit for human society.

Sally, for her part, was very supportive. First, by laughing at me and the skidmarked step for 3 hours, and then by referring to me as "Scrapey Butt" for the next 2 months. She's better than a band aid, I tell you.