After a hiatus of several months I’m returning to the blog with the first in a series of recollections of utterly stupid acts. “Stupid” might be too harsh–maybe “bizarre” is a better descriptor. In either case, these will be anecdotal situations that arose as a result of my own behavior, that of my family, friends and possibly coworkers, or even my dogs. I probably shouldn’t begin with this particular story because I’m setting the bar awfully high and I’ll probably never be able to top it, but here goes.

About ten years ago I was on my way home from work and decided to stop at the bank. I could easily have been stopping at CVS or the gas station, but what ensued might not have been as comic as it was in the shadow of a financial institution. If I’d been on my way into a church it would have been tragic, and if I’d been in front of a liquor store it would have been run of the mill. But nearly running yourself over with your own car in front of a bank is inspired, in its own way–a postmodern take on the desperate stockholder leaping to her death from a ledge. A bit ironic.

I don’t remember why I needed to go into the bank that day, as I am a devoted user of the drive-up ATM. I haven’t actually talked to a bank teller in years. But on that weekday afternoon I decided I needed to enter the bank, so I pulled my car over to a curbside parking place that was available a few feet from the entrance. This particular bank is on a busy street, a short distance from a busy intersection. It is also directly across from a high school, and there were plenty of idle teens in the area, just waiting for someone to ridicule.

Why didn’t I use the drive-up ATM? Why didn’t I park in the lot? Why was I driving a manual transmission car? Why did I neglect to engage the handbrake? For that matter, why did I leave the house at all that day? I still don’t have the answers to these questions. I turned off the engine, opened the car door, and stepped out into the busy street. I didn’t realize that this busy street was slightly inclined until I was half out of the car and felt the open door knock me over as the car rolled back. I landed face first in the street, facing the oncoming traffic.

My mishap had all the earmarks of a desperate act: the visibility, the misuse of technology, the absence of warning. If I’d succeeded in running myself over I would surely have become one of those shocking but irrelevant headlines on CNN.com like “Bride Impales Herself on Wedding Day” or “Tot Has Flesh-Eating Bacteria.” “Woman Sues Self for Hit and Run Injuries” might now be my legacy, instead of “Stupid Acts, Part 1,” but luckily I didn’t succeed. The one far-reaching decision I had made that day was my choice of shoes.

Black suede Nine West loafers, size 10. As I was knocked over, my left loafer came off and lodged itself under the front driver’s side tire, stopping the car. Charlie Chaplin could not have choreographed it better. In the split second it took to realize that my biggest worry was going to be abject mortification, I jumped up from the pavement, grabbed the life-saving shoe, got back into the car and tore off before anyone could get a good look at my face. I think I overshot my house by a half-mile, so intent was I on distancing myself from this pratfall. I may even have waited for nightfall before returning home.

I went on to wear the Nine West loafers–with much gratitude–for many months after. In time I learned to entertain people at luncheons and meetings with an account of my mishap. But I didn’t return to that bank branch for a good couple of years, and only when I was no longer driving the same car.