Mister Boyfriend is headed down South this afternoon to take care of some family business, and my mother has been cool enough to come visit me while he’s gone. She left Arkansas yesterday morning, and put my father in charge of the house and the menagerie.

About two hours after she left, I got a call from Dad. He had been climbing the ladder to the attic when he slipped and fell. And when he landed, he looked over and saw that his ankle was completely twisted to the side. He could move it and walk on it, though, and so he went to his truck, drove himself to get lunch and rent a movie, and then called my brother to take him to the emergency room. He called me, laughing, as he was driving down the road to meet The Brother, to tell me what had happened. It turned out that he hadn’t broken anything, so they wrapped his ankle and sent him home on crutches. I told him that I appreciated his strong sympathy for my situation, but that this was carrying it a bit far.

What makes the whole thing even odder is that two days before that, my Godmother fell in her New Orleans house. And twisted her ankle. And is on crutches.

So, people who know me, beware! I have a contagious ankle, and one apparently need not be within 700 miles of me to catch it. Don’t fall off of things, and don’t fall down. Keep the world filled with as many happy ankles as possible and help break the curse.

Update: As mentioned in my comments, a professor in my department fell and broke hers the week after I did.
Additional update: And my mother reports that hers is feeling achy.
Yet another update: And apparently one only has to know a blogger who barely knows me.