When I opened the garage door this afternoon, I discovered a dragonfly that had been bumping around in there all night. Despite the open door, he kept smacking into the back wall, and was dangerously close to a spider web. Poor, stupid, softhearted goof that I am, I decided I should help him.

So I stood on the top step leading into the house and gently, oh so gently, cupped my hands around the dragonfly.

By now, anyone familiar with me already knows what is about to happen.

With the dragonfly safely in my cupped hands, I turned to take him out to the flowerbed. Naturally, since I was concentrating so much on not hurting the dragonfly, I completely forgot that I was standing two steps off the nice, firm, concrete garage floor.

Yeah.

To my credit, my hands remained carefully cupped around the dragonfly, who came through the incident entirely injury free. Since I couldn’t use my hands to break my fall, I didn’t. Break my fall, that is. Eight hours later the feeling has mostly returned to my toes, and the badly scraped knee has almost stopped throbbing. By my standards, I came through it remarkably well.

I hope the dragonfly appreciates the assist.