Day and Night Trippers

To say my family trips a lot is an understatement! And when we go down, we do it right and in classic bumbling style. It usually happens in a very public place, or in a very dramatic way. I'f we had cameras following us, it would be very entertaining footage. My father takes the lead, with tripping over his own feet quite often. He's learned to catch himself much better in his older age. My mother doesn't do it that often, but when she does it is an oscar worthy fall. Me, I usually am oblivous when I am walking so I often trip, not see a step, bump into furniture, doors, all of the above. I don't often actually go down, but I usually have a bruise or two on me at all times. My sister almost never falls, and doesn't really trip often...until last night. We have a list of the great falls of the family and my big sister just made the list at number four. I am fortunate to have been witness to all of them. Here is our list:
4. Last night my big sister and her husband, son, and I were at holiday festival lighting in san juan capistrano. We headed down towards the train depot where they have a holiday metrolink with santa claus, my nephew loves trains, when my sister stepped on a grate and her heel slipped. It actually looked like she caught herself then suddenly her other foot slipped and she caught herself with banging her head on a store a window and then falling to the ground. Like I said, us Calabro's go down in class, she scraped her knees and hands up but didn't even rip her tights. Go Big sis!
3. I come in at number three with not looking and stepping into a heating vent that was in the floor. When we lived in our old Victorian style home back in Riverside, the heating vents were located in corners on the floor. They had these big grates on them. So when you turned the corner you often stepped on part of the grate. Well, one night when the fam was getting ready to go out to dinner, my dad and brother-in-law had pulled the grate out of the vent in the dining room. They were looking at something on it. Well, we were about to leave so got up quickly to go grab my sweater and turned the corner quickly into the dining room not looking where I was walking. Suddenly my right like went into the heating vent up to mid thigh. I scraped my leg from my ankle to my knee. I didn't even care about that, I was so shocked when my leg went through the ground it seemed like and so incredibly embarrassed for some reason, I just started tearing up. And again, in true Calabro style, I was wearing jeans, my levi's were not damaged in any way. Still, not a good night for me.
2. My dad falls into the number two spot with his movie theater fall. We went to go see a movie that was sold out and we headed towards the front of the theater to get one of those close seats when my dad didn't realize that where the carpet ends is not a step. He went to go take a step and got disoriented and fell to one knee at the front of the theater in front of a sold out theater. Poor guy turned bright red.
1. My mother takes the number one spot with her houdini act of rolling down Mt. Rubidoux. My mother and I went for a walk, we decided to take the unpaved path around the mountain instead of the main road. It got steep and slippery. As my mother is telling me "Manda, watch out it's really slippery here" she loses control of her feet and starts to sort of walk run down the mountain and then finally loses her balance and starts rolling down the side of the mountain and proceeds to bounce off the side of the mountain before she actually stops. I stood there stunned, especially since there was freeway below and if she would have kept going it would have been really scary. But, to show how we Calabro's do it, she rolled down the side of a mountain and didn't even have a scratch. She was totally fine. It was freaking hilarious though.