A Story About The Frugal Maven

Once, several years ago, I fell in a manhole. I am not known for my ability to walk and often congratulate myself when I realize that it may have been at least two weeks since I have fallen publicly and injured something that I will have to have replaced in about 10 more years. Like a knee. Anyway, several years ago I worked for a hospital that shall remain nameless except don't take anyone you love there and it's in downtown Louisville. I had to report to work at 6 a.m. for my crappy paying job where I worked in the lab across from a person named Karen. I could watch her beard grow and by the time I left in the afternoons she needed a shave. Every day. It was the most interesting thing about working there.

One morning I was meandering across the parking lot and onto the grassy divide when all of a sudden whoosh! Down I went, straight into a manhole whose cover was not where the cover is supposed to be, like on the manhole. My manhole was not fabulous and did not say "Ville de Paris" like the one pictured above. My manhole cover, if I could have found it, probably said,"I have been moved from my rightful spot so watch out when you walk across the grassy divide or you will find yourself assdeep in sewage and lose one of your good flats and have to be trundled into the hospital in a wheelchair".

I was not the only one to suffer, though. An elderly gentleman was idling in his gigantic yellow Cadillac with his lights on directly in front of me waiting to pick someone up from the night shift. When I went whoosh I apparently disappeared before his very eyes. He thought I had vanished and came flying out of the car screaming, "Oh sweet Jesus! Oh, she's gone! She was right there and she's gone!" He actually attracted more attention than I did and took longer to calm down.

Here's two of the reasons among many why I quit that job soon thereafter. One, my supervisor came to the E.R. where I was ensconced, sans one flat, with a sprained ankle and a very bruised hip and in a wheelchair and informed me that she would have to mark me late if I didn't report for work soon. And two months later I got a bill for $16 for the single footie they gave me to wear in lieu of my shoe that was floating out to the Ohio River.