football and fractures

Imagine you've just installed a new underground dog fence for your Shih Tzu, Fifi. The mechanism works by shocking Fifi as she attempts to traverse the invisible boundary. Fifi learns from these painful encounters not to try that again and harmony is eventually acheived.

That Shih Tzu is smarter than me.

The evening was Saturday, the city crackling with energy and nervous anticipation. Denmark was playing fierce rival Sweden in a pivotal match. If Denmark won, they were assured qualification for the 2010 World Cup. The security was tighter than the Danes' abs, the pubs more packed than their muscle tees. The stage was set for a memorable evening.

The match was ultimately decided in the 78th minute by a lone goal from Denmark's Jakub Poulson. With gamefaces already on, everybody headed to the bars. We picked a particularly industral venue called Karriere Bar located in the meat-packing district to spend our evening. There was dancing, there was drinking. There was more drinking. I made the dance floor so hot my shoes melted (hey, always room for some embellishment in a blog). By 3:30, I'd had enough and decided it was time to bike home. If you've read my previous entries, you know that I've had a low to moderate success rate in escaping these impaired jaunts unscathed.

I actually made it all the way to my apartment before disaster struck. Hopefully this picture of the crime scene (the theft of my pride and dignity) is an adequate visual aid, but basically I was riding parallel to the curb and needed to hop it in order to reach the gate to my apartment complex. I failed to lift my front tire up high enough to clear the curb and, due to the angle, my bike toppled over sideways. I slammed onto the asphalt with the grace of a three-legged tipped cow, removing all the skin on my elbow and, I'm 95% sure, cracking my pelvis in the process.

So Denmark won. Yay. In other news, fall has come to Copenhagen. I still haven't found a job. And I've been mostly confined to my apartment since Saturday, feeling better but still entirely unpleasant. Even a stupid dog learns from pain not to replicate an action. Yet this reasonably intelligent human being can't seem to learn that drinking+driving=disaster. Maybe CBS should think about rescinding my academic scholarship...