Face Meets Pavement

Sooooo.. I am a cripple. Or, as my brother-in-law and his wife like to point out when I am beating them at cards, a gimp (as in "whatever, gimppedy mc-gimp-gimp!"). The above picture is the result of a nasty bike accident. My co-worker (now friend, you can't do what she did for me and not come out of it my friend) and I hung out monday night. Her boyfriend was out of town and so to keep herself from feeling too lonely she invited me over and cooked me dinner. We had a great time and then went to a pub called "the flying pig" or something like that. Good pub with good beer, but that makes me feel manly because women in England do not drink beer, but I am not a wine person and I refuse to drink shandys (eew) and so I drink beer and feel defensive (on the other side, I like telling macho men that soccer in the USA is predominantly a girl's sport, it makes me snicker). Biking back from the pub we stopped at a red light. Actually, S. (my co-worker) stopped and I hit the recently re-tuned hair-trigger front wheel brake instead of the back wheel brake, had a brief physics lesson (Newtons first and third laws, and transference of momentum) and a cultural experience (in England front brakes are on the right side of the handlebars, unlike the USA where the right side has the back brake) thought "shit! wrong brake!" and hit the pavement.
It's true, all of that, and I would tell you if I was embellishing for the sake of my story.
S. helped me up and the woman in the car at the light ahead of us stopped and was very kind and asked if I was ok. I immediately told her that I was fine and that she was kind for asking and no, I didn't need any help. I am pretty sure that if I had been bleeding to death with all kinds of bones sticking out of my arms I would have still told her not to worry about lil' ol' me. I am sometimes too polite (ie: the time I ate an entire bowl of Crisco mixed with frozen blueberries and sugar, sugar and blueberries do NOT dissolve in Crisco by the way, because my nice Athabaskan hosts had made my group "Eskimo ice cream" and I didn't want them to think that I wasn't appreciative of their dish). S. looked at my chin and said "you're going to need some stitches." We walked the last 2 blocks back to her place and she loaded me into her car and took me to the A&E ("Accidents and Emergencies" = the Emergency Room). A&Es are EXACTLY like ERs. Same linoleum floor, same low ceiling, same flourescent lighting, same wait to see an actual doctor. We got there at 11:30 and it was 3 am before I saw a doctor. We were sitting across from an array of pamphlets called things like "Cervical Cancer" and "Testicular Cancer" and "Keep Warm, Keep Well" (which sounds like it would be funny, DUH you should keep warm! but it's for elderly pensioners who can't afford to heat their houses. Decidedly not funny). The manly cancer pamphlet was decorated with soccer balls and the woman-cancer pamphlet had pictures of flowers. Because, clearly, cancer is fun! Like playing soccer among the daisies.
I had an x-ray (which my doctor let me look at, it was really really clear and I could see my fracture once she had pointed it out) which showed said fracture of my radius at the elbow joint. They wrapped it in gauze ang gave me a sling. Then the nurse glued the cut on my chin closed and sent me home. I don't have a cast or a splint because the fracture will heal on its own and elbows, apparently, need to be constantly moved otherwise they stiffen and become useless.
Besides the fracture and the chin I have some nice roadburn on one hand and 6 bruises more than an inch in width and looking like I decided to color myself in with purple sharpie.
Did I mention that S. not only took me to the hospital, stayed with me until they let me out at 4 am, drove me home, and but she brought me back my bike the next day? If I could write poetry or music or something, I would dedicate an ode to S. As I can do neither of those things, I bought her cakes and invited her to dinner. She is my most favoritest person in the entire goddamn world right now (KT agrees with me wholeheartedly. Especially since she offered to babysit Hannah).
I got to tell my story to all the regulars at work (who all told me their falling-off-the-bike stories), and someone noticed my chin and my new way of gingerly pulling pints and asked me, knowingly, if I had fallen off of my bike recently.
There was also a new guy at work, C. C's been a barman for 3 years and is not very good at it. He makes drinks well and can do the banter with customers but never picked up any plates. He's not very interesting or easy to talk to, I am pretty sure that we are not going to be friends. Too bad.