Falling *with* a ladder...

I am pretty sure gravity gets stronger as we get older.

I was changing smoke detector battery up on the third floor. After I was done, I picked up the little step ladder I was using, and then decided to bring my laptop downstairs at the same time.

With the ladder in one hand and the laptop, open, balanced against my face, I negotiated the steps, all the way to the first floor. There, in full view of my lovely wife, impressionable kids and skittish dog, I missed the bottom step,  twisted my ankle like taffy and began the LONGEST fall in history.

Trying not to curse too vividly, I crashed forward, smashing the ladder into the ground in a desperate attempt to stop the fall and keep my computer from crashing to the ground. Instead of stopping my fall, the ladder opened up with a huge clattering noise, complementing my second round of barely censored cursing. For some reason, though, I did not drop the ladder, and instead swung it around at the end of my flailing left arm, banging it into the wall, the stairs, the counters, the floor. The ladder kept opening and closing with every impact, adding to the cacophony.

Without support from the ladder, I tried to put my left foot down but the ankle gave way again, and I stumbled left and sideways and slammed into the counter.

This trip-and-fall episode now was moving into its second full minute. I was still falling, yet, I'd been falling so long that my family had enough time to leap from their seats in the TV room and run nearly all the way to me, grab a soda, cook some popcorn and settle in to see how it all ended.

I was now in "controlled crash landing mode." With no left leg to stand on, I fell onto my left knee and elbow, cursing a pale blue streak. Even as the side of my face bounced off the wooden floor of our kitchen, I laid my computer (relatively) gently on the ground, and finally released the ladder from my death grip.

My computer is OK. The ladder is OK. My ankle is on ice but mostly OK. The only casualties were my dignity, such as it remains, and the dog, who now is COMPLETELY freaked out.

It wasn't as bad as this, but it felt like it. (The video title has a slightly off-color word - sorry...)

http://youtu.be/sozUj5eC_1U.