Best Of 2023 - True Life: I Fell Down The Stairs At The Apple Store Because Of An Old Lady

The day was December 1st, 2019.

Freezing rain splashed down on the trash-scented pavement of New York City.

I trudged through the slush on the sidewalks as I walked up Broadway heading for the Apple Store.

Broken computer in hand, long before the world of COVID, or me hosting The Dozen, I had to make sure my computer was ready to go for the week ahead at work.

As I entered the glass box that is the Upper West Side Apple Store, I watched Kareem Hunt catch a nice pass over the middle from Baker Mayfield, resulting in a Cleveland Browns touchdown and a 10-0 lead in Pittsburgh.

A quick, "Now pour it on!" text to my dad (now dead, by the way -- not relevant to the story, but an attempt at gaining your sympathy for the following story) was the last communication with family and friends before the impending life-changing experience.

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Inside this particular Apple Store, the area in which they help service products is down in the basement.

To get down there is a giant spiral staircase, like you see here below...

JEWEL SAMAD. Getty Images.

These aren't the EXACT stairs, but they're very similar stairs for the store by Central Park in New York City.

As you can tell, the inside track of the stairwell shrinks down to about the size of a normal foot, or smaller. THIS IS IMPORTANT, PLEASE REMEMBER THIS FACT.

STAN HONDA. Getty Images.

After saying hello to the Apple Store employee at the top of the stairs, I began to descend to the basement…

Normally, Apple will place carpets, or a rug, down on their glass stairs when the weather is poor. The material of those steps is not great when it comes to wet weather. But, for some reason, on this fateful Sunday, the stairs were nude, empty of any traction.

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Looking down the stairwell, I saw an old lady, or, for the sake of this story "a fucking bag of bones," slowly stepping up them at what can only be described as a "snail's pace."

Seeing how little room she would have on the inside track, I decided to step aside, allowing this likely BINGO-playing prune juice savant more room to get up the slippery stairs.

After moving down roughly two to three small steps, barely large enough for my entire food, it happened…

As if I was a Looney Tunes character stepping on a banana peel, my feet came out from underneath me, my ass slammed against the steps, and I preceded to skid down every single level of that wet, slick spiral staircase, until I slid onto the basement floor like a luge competitor at the end of their Olympic sled run.

Every single step. I hit… every… single… step.

Flat on my back, and in so much pain that I could barely move, Apple store employees, and security, rushed over to my side as if I was some sort of Samsung or Microsoft terrorist.

One of them helped me to my feet, and another one went to retrieve my phone, which had slid all the way across the room to the headphone section.

They were concerned about my well-being, as I assumed they thought I would use this opportunity to sue them. Meanwhile, I was mostly concerned about the embarrassing event that took place, surely one of the lowest points of my life.

Not much else happened after this inside of the store, unless you want to count my computer being fixed, and the Browns game going completely south as they shat their pants in Pittsburgh and lost the game. While my ass and backside hurt quite a bit, I gutted it out and stayed the course.

What DID happen to me after I left, however, was this bruise…

WARNING… YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE MY ASS IN…

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I blurred out the crack for some reason. I am not sure why, but it seemed courteous.

That black & blue lasted for months and months on end. Every time I would catch a glimpse of it in the shower, or somewhere while changing, it would take my breath away. That wasn't even its peak color, either, it was jet black for quite a while.

You might be asking yourself, "Jeff, what did you buy with all the money you got from suing Apple?"

The answer is quite simple: nothing.

Instead of taking legal action, or trying to scrape a few bucks from the trillion-dollar company, I decided to make a joke of it on our podcast, openly discuss it, and everything in between.

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Why? Because I am a fucking idiot who fell down the stairs at the Apple Store.

The moral of this story? Holding doors is nice enough, the olds have had their time, so just dominate the stairwell.

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EDIT: I found my tweet from that day, but I believe this is a photo from Google, so I didn't want to spoil the story with my tweet. For those who have heard this story, I hope you enjoed hearing it again.

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Enjoy your Labor Day Weekend.