finally, a bike accident

Finally, after 3 months of near-misses with other bikes and pedestrians, I managed to fall off my bike today. Ironically, I wasn't really close to hitting anybody/thing else at all! I was biking on the side of the road (no sidewalk here) and slowing down for a red light. There were a bunch of cars lined up behind the red light, and I figured to avoid them (and also to get near the crosswalk in order to cross) I'd bike through a small puddle (it had been raining earlier in the day). Lo and behold...the small puddle turned out to be a really deep and steep. As soon as I hit the puddle, I realized my mistake but of course by then I was sailing through the air...and landing belly down on the ground. Next to a bunch of cars. How embarrassing! So of course I jumped right back up like See? it never happened, I'm okay. I righted my bike, pushed it along, parked it to go back and get my hat which was thrown to the ground, and finally made it across the street. I went a few blocks before thinking, Gee! Maybe I ought to check if I'm bleeding anywhere. So at the next stoplight I check and realize that my left knee is indeed bleeding, and so I stuck on one small band-aid I had in my backpack. It looked kind of pitiful.

I was on my way downtown to go shopping, so I figured I'd just park and find a drugstore there. I found a very tiny drugstore with two middle-aged ladies, one of them in a white coat. Not knowing the Japanese word for band-aid, I just lifted up my capris and showed her my clearly inadequate bandage and said, Do you have this? She did, and I asked her if she had medicine (looking for something neosporin-like). And of course she found that too and I made sure by asking her, If I put this on, will it heal faster? Again, not knowing the word for "antibiotic" or "disinfect" was kind of annoying. So I paid for my bandaids and my neosporin, and I was all ready to leave the store to go nurse myself, but the lady in the white coat actually told me to sit down. She then proceeded to use rubbing alcohol to disinfect my skinned knee (I didn't buy the alcohol), put the neosporin on the bandaid and the bandaid on my knee. And then another one, crosswise, for good measure. She told me to be careful, and that I could shower with the bandaid and didn't need to change it for two days. Amazing. This was at a drugstore! I don't think any pharmacist or Walgreens cashier would apply bandaids and neosporin to their customers. I'm just...shocked and amazed and really pleased too. Probably worth the skinned knee, just for the story to tell.
Other things I learned: carry a supply of adequately sized bandaids while biking. And avoid biking through puddles when you can't tell how deep or steep they are.