Introducing “The A-Z of Balcony Jumping” According to Patrick D. Murphy

A- A is for ‘ANKLES’; Usage: ‘Ankles come in very handy for walking and standing.’ B- B is for ‘BALCONY’; Usage: ‘Do not jump off a balcony, especially if it’s too high!’ C- C is for ‘CANKLE’; Usage: ‘You get savage cankles when you jump off balconies!’ D- D is for ‘DUNCE’; Usage: ‘Patrick Murphy is some dunce for jumping off a balcony and not looking before he jumped, which resulted in broken ankles and therefore cankles!’ E- E is for ‘EMERGENCY ROOM’; Usage: “Quick call an Uber! This clown needs to go the emergency room and an ambulance is too expensive!” lamented Casey. Also: The emergency room doctor and nurses, looked at the Irishman incredulously when he mentioned he jumped off a balcony and broke both his legs. ‘What a dunce,’ they thought amusingly and chortled amongst themselves. F- F is for ‘FLIGHTLESS’; Usage: ‘The Irishman fell to earth like a flightless Cassowary.’ G- G is for ‘GRAVITY’; Usage: “Let’s see if Newton was right about gravity,” said the dunce. H- H is for HOLY; Usage: “Holy Mother of God! I think I broke my legs!” cursed the flightless Irishman as he careened down the damnable stairs. I- I is for ‘INSURANCE’; Usage: ‘The insurance industry is so convoluted that no one appears to know what is going on!’ Also: ‘The Insurance company representative mentioned on multiple occasions, “Oh we don’t cover that, that’s an ‘Out-of-pocket’ expense.”’ J- J is for JUMP; Usage: “Might as well jump!” David Lee Roth

“Might as well jump!” Patrick D. Murphy

“Oh god! I think he’s actually going to jump!” Steve Twigger K- K is for KNUCKLEHEAD: (See ‘Dunce’ also: Bonehead, nincompoop, ninny, halfwit, jackass, numpty, numskull, chump, dolt, simpleton, harebrained etc.) L- L is for ‘LUGGAGE CART’; Usage: “Since we don’t have a wheelchair let’s use the luggage cart to get to your room,” said ‘Florida man’ to Patrick. M- M is for MULTILINGUAL; Usage: ‘The Irishman had no idea he was so multilingual! He unleashed a cacophony of swear words from around the world;

Irish: Is mo %%t^&h*G!!

German: Gruven ich H&&$$fEW##$EN!

Mandarin: Tai lei B%$%(#ING!

Tagalog: S^%$*ert!

Swedish: Vert de verk? BJORK BJORK BJORK!!! N- N is for ‘NAVICULAR’; Usage: “You shattered your navicular bone just above the lateral cuneiforms when you jumped off the balcony,” said the dumbfounded X-Ray specialist. O- O is for ORTHOPEDIC; Usage: “Orthopedic is sometimes spelled ‘Orthopaedic’,” said the frustrated orthopedic doctor in the Orthopaedic Institute of Orthopedics. P- P is for PRESUMED; Usage: “I presumed someone would catch me!” wailed the Irishman, whose cries fell upon mute ears, anticipating some sort of solace from Katie but she turned and blurted in a strange Grover like voice; “How many times have I told you not to assume anything! There is no assume! Just do or do not! Q- Q is for Quarantine; from ‘Quarantena’, meaning "forty days", used in 14th-15th-century Venetian language and designating the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic. How appropriate! R- R is for RADIOACTIVE; Usage: ‘The Irishman had a nice neon chartreuse radioactive glow from his mangled limbs, just in time for St Patrick’s Day, after multiple X-Rays and CT scans at the various medical institutions.’ S- S if for STAIRS; Usage: “It’s an established fact, that a flight of stairs is the only natural sworn enemy of all balcony jumpers,” said Purvis with his wry, yet mellifluous Canadian accent T- T is for ‘TARSUS’; Usage: “I thought Tarsus was a constellation,” said the Irishman in the emergency room, having laid his eyes upon the X-Rays and saw his broken Tarsus. U- U is for UTTERED; Usage: ‘As he fell, he uttered some unintelligible utterances, tumbling unceremoniously, after underestimating the height of the balcony. Bystanders are sure he uttered “As you WISSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!”’ V- V is for VANISHED; Usage: “He’s vanished into thin air!” cried Ryan Lacey from the vantage point his drum throne, unbeknownst to him that Murphy had merely plummeted down a flight of stairs W- W is for WHISKEY; Usage: ”The whiskey made me do it!” shouted the Irishman, as he flirted with gravity, prior to imitating the esteemed flightless Cassowary X- is for X-Ray: Usage: “I have discovered X-Rays!!” exclaimed Wilheim Röntgen in 1895, “Hopefully this remarkable discovery will be put to great use for the advancement of mankind and not for dimwits jumping off balconies pretending to be Cassowaries defying my good friend Isaac Newton! Who would be so stupid? Mein Gott im Himmel!” Y- Y is for ‘YOB’; Usage: “You’re some yob, ya daft dunce!” said Patrick’s so called ‘friend.’ Z- Z is for ZUGZWANG; Usage: ‘After a brief pause on the edge of the balcony, the Irishman realized that his position looked like a perfect example of zugzwang; He was doomed for eternity, no matter his next decision; He was totally and utterly ZUGZWANGED!!’ And the moral of the story is... “Don’t put yourself in a situation where you end up getting ZUGZWANGED!”