ATGATT, Baby!

ATGATT is an acronym used by motorcycle riders with a certain mindset about riding. (They want to live.) It stands for All The Gear, All The Time. And for those of you who remember the saga of Bob, my magenta leather riding jacket, you'll be happy to know I wear the thing pretty much all the time. Well, okay, I wear it just about whenever I don't ride the bike. I prefer my SWAT suit on the highway, thanks, just because it zips together to form a one piece suit. But Bob is useful as well as pretty- with many handy pockets and just the right weight- so that's the jacket I almost always grab when I'm NOT riding.
This morning, as I trundled down the stairs to take the Jeep to class (if you're late, take the car- and I'm always late on Saturday mornings) my right ankle buckled on one of the steps down to the garage. It was an amazingly hard hit, and trust me, I'm a good judge of stair tumbles. I have more experience in them than I'd care to admit. As I lay at the bottom, throwing fallen hockey sticks off me one by one and trying to calculate whether my ankle was really hurt or it was just shock pain, I realized I had hit my back on the corner or the steps and my right elbow on the edge of the wall. It took me a minute because neither of them really registered until I ran back through the impact in my mind to determine exactly what had happened. Luckily, I happen to be wearing a jacket with impact protection in both places. Ha! Score one for the biker lifestyle. My ankle and knee are both a little tender, but I'll take that kind of trade off any day.
Maybe I should start wearing my helmet around, too...