How exactly do you explain it...

You know... I had an interesting conversation by email today. My mom was checking up on me, seeing how I'm doing with the knee of doom and all. Everything was going nicely til she asked the question.

It's not a rude question, or one people shouldn't ask. In fact, it's the logical question really:  So, what did you do to your knee?

The problem? I have absolutely no freaking idea what I did to trigger this round of fun. I simply woke up and my knee was swelling and painful. But how do you convey this to people?

See, I've run into this in the past. If I say I don't know, people think I'm lying to them because the story is just too juicy to share, or they think I was too drunk to remember what I did. I don't like either connotation, and saying I don't know is always followed by them pressing you to tell them what really happened.

If I tell them the truth- that years ago I had two arthroscopic surgeries on that knee, and that periodically it just decides it hates me, and that I woke up three weeks ago with my knee swollen, unstable, and painful- then they sort of zone out halfway through and I feel like I'm boring them silly, or that I'm going into entirely too much detail. Clearly that option is out of the question.

So why not come up with a great lie to describe what happened? I have a huge problem with that because I hate lying to people. Even little white lies make me uncomfortable, so I'd prefer to just not do it, even if it would make my life easier.

So I think I've found the answer tonight. My husband took me to WalMart because I've been stuck in the house for three weeks, other than the trip to the ER and a horrible trip to the post office to mail off a package. After the fourth or fifth person asked what happened to my knee, I simply shrugged and said, "I'm clumsy, what can I say?"

And what do you know? They accepted that answer as explanation enough, and let me get back to what I was doing. Who knew it'd be that simple?

I certainly didn't!

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