David Chiu

“How do I get myself in these situations?” I asked myself. I was sitting on a bed with this girl showing her my modeling portfolio. I wasn’t even attracted to this girl, but I could hear comments from the other room.

“Where’s Dave?”

“I think he’s in the back room with Jen.”

“He’s showing her his “modeling portfolio”"

I felt pretty stupid. I didn’t want it to seem as if I was hitting on this girl because the girl I was actually interested in was in the next room - with her boyfriend.

My dream girl then appeared in the bedroom doorway.

“We’re leaving and I just wanted to say bye.”

I quickly got up from the bed.

“Ok.” I said as I followed her out into the living room.

“I guess I’ll see you Monday.”

I watched as she left with her boyfriend wishing that it was me she was leaving with.

It was now late in the evening and everyone had gone home. The only people that were left were Maggie (the host), her friend (the girl I had been showing my modeling photos to), my friend Denny and me. I don’t even remember how it started, but I think we were talking about martial arts. Denny started bragging about how flexible he was and that he could do a full split.

“Let’s see it then” Maggie said.

Denny got down on the floor and proceeded to lower himself into a split. He was able to go down pretty far, but there were still a couple of inches of space beneath him.

“See!” He said with a big smile.

“That’s not a full split.” I said, challenging him. There are still a couple inches of space beneath you.

“Let’s see you do it then.” He replied.

I slowly lowered my body into a front split. It was a pretty good split. I had studied martial arts for a couple of years and was pretty flexible, but I was never able to achieve a “complete” split where both of my legs are completely flat on the ground. I started to feel a lot of tension in my leg muscles as they were being stretched to their limit. I stopped. There were still a couple of inches of space beneath me.

“See, you can’t do it either.” Denny said, mockingly.

“Watch”, I replied, before tossing away common sense.

I took a deep breath and relaxed the muscles in my leg. My body started to lower closer and closer to the ground.

“Wow” I thought to myself. “I’ve never been able to do this before.”

Suddenly, I felt a weird sensation in the back of my front leg. I could hear it too. It was like my pants were ripping and I could feel it inside my leg.

“Ow, ow, ow” I said aloud as I achieved the full split.

I quickly leaned over to my left side and brought my legs back together.

“I think I ripped a muscle.”

I started to feel a tingly sensation in my ham string and I tried to put weight on my leg.

“Ouch!” I screamed out in pain. “I ripped my hamstring”.

“Sit down, sit down. I’ll get some Chinese medicine” Maggie said as she disappeared in the back room. She emerged with two thin-silver packages that looked like oversized packages of moist towelletts. “What’s that?” I said. “It’s a pad with Chinese medicine meant for muscle strain. It will stick to your body.” I lifted my pant leg and noticed that my leg was starting to turn purple. I opened two of the packages and stuck them to my leg. They started to feel warm. It was like Bengay. Pain started to fill my leg and I realized there was no way I could walk on it.

When I returned home that night I removed the medicated pad to asses my injury. I was horrified to find that the entire back of my leg was deep purple and black from the back of my knee all the way up to my groin. It hurt like hell.

That was one of the stupidest things I have ever done.