DLand - Why Do They Call It a Kickplate?

Baby gates are evil torture devices. We have one in the doorway to our downstairs bathroom - also known as the kitty room. The litterbox is in there and my sweet pooch Sarah has a magnetic attraction - no - chemical dependency on kitty poo. So we keep the gate up so that we don't have to walk on litter bits in the hall. Too much information, I know. Anyways, last night I'm talking to Sweetpea and leaving the potty about to head to the computer room for some late night quality time with him. I swung my left leg up to go over the gate and rammed my kneecap into the kickplate for the doorframe (the little brass thing that the doorknob latch goes into). My kneecap. Faster than the speed of sound. Headed at the little brass dagger of a kickplate. There was a loud thudding noise, possibly come crunching noises too. And then much wailing and weeping. Normally, I'm pretty brave and calm about bodily injuries (Daddy locked my finger in his suitcase once by accident and I didn't say a peep). But this hurt so bad and was so creepy feeling that my whole world fell apart for about 15 minutes. I let out a yell like I had been shot and immediately burst into uncontrollable tears. And not those sappy movie tears. These were the "Why? Why did you take my baby?" wails you see in dramatic television shows. So poor Sweetpea comes tearing around the corner to find me leaning on the door, grabbing the fabric of my jeans like I'm trying to rip them off of me, biting my lip and whimpering like a wounded animal. Bit of a shock for him too. Oh, and the goddamn dog is sitting there in the hall looking at me and wagging her tail. Stupid mutt.

What really pisses me off is after all that pain and shock, there is absolutely no evidence of my brush with permanent disability. There's not even a visible bruise.

Oh, and the baby gate has been removed until further notice.