A break is very nearly just what I got.

Imagine asking for a pony and actually getting a pony, except the pony is served over rice with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

You see, normal people get a Christmas break. I got a Christmas dislocation.

I was having trouble sleeping in the waning hours before dawn Christmas morning, so I decided to put some finishing touches on the bench I'd made for my parents. I'd built the bench using scrap lumber and an old wooden headboard I'd salvaged from the curb, and decided to add some color by attaching a pair of primitive-looking bluebirds to the back. All I needed to finish the birds was some black paint for the eyes.

I went to our basement to get the paint, and when I didn't find it in the first box I looked in, I lifted the box and put it behind me in order to look through the next box. Almost immediately, I found the paint I needed, so I grabbed the bottle and turned to head back upstairs - completely forgetting that first box I'd placed on the floor.

To protect my already soft noggin from our cement floor, I stuck out my arm to break my fall. The resulting sound was horrific.

The visual was worse.

I tried to stand, but my loose and wobbly arm threatened to stay on the floor if I did, so I started to yell. Other than our garage, there's no place in our house I could've fallen that would've put me further from my sleeping husband and daughter than where I was so gracelessly sprawled. I managed to reach a broom and began banging on our furnace as hard as I could, expecting I could at least trigger some alarm-type barking from our dogs, thus waking the humans.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

Nothing.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

Silence.

What's the point in having three dogs if not one of them is capable of saving little Timmy from the well? Apparently they don't clock in for duty before 9 a.m.

After about 10 minutes of banging, Geoff awakened and found me. I missed my chance to use the "I've fallen and I can't get up" line, but with my history, I expect there will be other opportunities.

He hurried me to Thomas Hospital, where I learned mine was the kind of injury that made most people wince before looking away. Although I normally love getting two-for-one deals, this time I was grateful to have just a bad dislocation rather than the break-dislocation combo that most, at first glance, thought it was.

Hours later, staggering from the lovely medley of medications I'd been served at the hospital, we stopped at home long enough to pick up the Christmas presents and head up to my parents' house. But with me incapacitated, there was one gift we couldn't take with us.

The bench I'd gotten up early to tweak.

The next few days are a bit of a blur, with Geoff and Celeste waiting on me hand and foot. (Lest you believe them to be saints, one is responsible for the Pierre mustache I found drawn on my upper lip after awakening from a nap, while the other collected video footage of me answering bizarre questions while loopy on pain meds.)

On Monday, I returned to work with my heavily padded arm in a sling, and as those who have endured an obvious injury have experienced, I found myself being questioned about what happened at every turn. It wasn't long before what actually happened began to feel far too dull, so I began mixing it up just a bit.

When asked, What happened to your arm?

Bar fight.

How'd you get hurt?

Arm-wrestling. After I'm better, I'm making Grandma give me a rematch.

What on earth did you do?

This is what happens when you tell Selby you won't do something that isn't in your job description.

My once impressive swelling has receded, so my hand no longer resembles an inflated surgical glove. And two days after Christmas, a neighbor helped us load my parents' bench into our car. Even though it was late, it was still a big hit.

The chief motivation for making presents this year was so we could save money. I just didn't realize at the outset that it was so we could send it to Thomas Hospital instead.

Reach Karin Fuller at karinful...@cnpapers.com.