The votes are in, and after an intensive round of voting it can be declared that I am the "Household Wuss of the Year" for 2008. I'll have to get a bigger trophy cabinet to hold these things in before too long I think.
INJURY ADDED TO INJURY
If it were anyone else it would be noteworthy, tragic even - for me it's just another day in the life. Maybe it's karma, maybe it's fate, or maybe it's the universe toying with me for shits and giggles (again). My toes seem to be a favourite target of everyone around me, including my children (who claim to love me) and my socks (which are supposed to be inanimate objects anyway). My current tale of toe woe starts on Friday night, with the (painful) removal of the sock on my left foot, which had become caught on the nail of the little toe. Tug... TUG... RIP!
Friday - Swear in pain as part of the nail is ripped away from the rest of the nail. Swear again as you notice that you are bleeding on the tile floor of your new house. Swear once more when you realise that there are no tissues or paper towel (or anything else that will help stop the bleeding) within easy arm reach. Hobble across the room to the kitchen bench and grab paper towel, then jury-rig a make-shift bad-aid of epic proportions and apply to injured toe before hobbling back to the couch. Sit back on the couch and wait for the bleeding to stop ... and promptly fall asleep. Wake up sore (in several spots, the couch is rather uncomfortable for that sort of thing when you're just shy of 2 metres in height) several hours later and stagger to the other end of the house and fall into deep(er) sleep.
Saturday - Time to leave the house and, by logical extension, time for shoes and socks... The socks don't hurt the mistreated toe at all, and you find out that the pain of footwear has been saved for the runners you have to put on next. Uncomfortable... After a few minutes the pain dies down (almost as fast as you wish your foot would do the same) and you're able to leave the house on a day suitable for baking mud bricks in record time. Spend the majority of the rest of your time away from the house (and in the stifling heat) strolling from furniture store to furniture store looking for new lounge suites, dining room tables and so on while at the same time trying to stop your three children from moving fast enough to start travelling back in time. During this time feel the pain increase as your footwear is turned into novel shaped vices by the swelling of your feet in the heat.
Sunday - It seems that 12 hours whipped by without further injury being done to my toe (what injuries were done previously today involve the sun, a shovel and a needlessly long hole - see below), so it's time for the universe to rectify that imbalance right sharp-ish. I'm supposed to love and support my children in their formative years, but where in the rule book does it say that I'm supposed to have an already injured toe run over by an overgrown 8 year old in a pair of in-line skates, twice? For that matter I'm also pretty sure that there was no mention made in any of the pre-natal parenting classes I managed to stay awake in that my middle child would be expected to drop furniture on me.
Take the two older children out to play with their new in-line skates for the first time, leaving the youngest asleep in his bed. While events may appear to show that Graeme had managed to lose his balance and fall while wearing in-line skates for the first time I'm damn sure that independent video evidence would show be-wheeled footwear wielded with expert and murderous intent. The more deranged members of the public may call this experience "bonding time", but being of a more lucid frame of mind I choose to call it "cruel and unusual". He's my son and I love him dearly, but until I can get a pair of steel-capped boots on the end of my feet he's on his own.
The mid-day pain session ended, time to go home, have lunch and prepare for the job of cleaning out the kid's rumpus room of all the crap that was dumped in there during the unpacking part of the move. Leave the room while it is decided that Nathan, the middle child with all the repressed anger management issues that implies, should drop an office chair on my foot at the first opportunity. Drop a chair on my foot he did, with bonus points awarded for the pin-point accuracy shown in hitting the much abused toe of my left foot and doing so while I was barefoot on a tile floor. Any minimal comfort that the carpet of the rumpus room would have provided during this was a tantalising 30cm away (dare I say it, but 30cm equals 1 foot), so while I was not really permitted to call him a little shit at this point I was allowed to think it. One point in Nathan's favour, he did allow me to sit on the freshly dropped chair so I could work my way through the pain - There's consideration for you right there.
A TRENCH TOO FAR
Dirt hates me. Subsoil clay hates me. The shovel I have to use to move that dirt and subsoil clay around hates me too. Even the sun hates me. Yesterday everything that hates me combined in an effort to make me lose what will to live I had left. The unbridled joy of breaking through sun-dried mud and topsoil was as nothing compared to the experience provided by trying to dig through clay that seemed to be a 50/50 mix of clay and super glue. Oh, did I mention the random chunks and surprise layers of concrete that I had to contend with? I think that by the time I gave up for the day (after a healthy supply of sunburn and blisters had been laid in) I got all of 2 metres worth of trench dug to suitable measure. 2 metres down, something like 10 to 12 more (or even more) to go. I'll dig more tonight after work, or leap in front of a Telstra van - I'm not too sure which.
INJURY ADDED TO INJURY
If it were anyone else it would be noteworthy, tragic even - for me it's just another day in the life. Maybe it's karma, maybe it's fate, or maybe it's the universe toying with me for shits and giggles (again). My toes seem to be a favourite target of everyone around me, including my children (who claim to love me) and my socks (which are supposed to be inanimate objects anyway). My current tale of toe woe starts on Friday night, with the (painful) removal of the sock on my left foot, which had become caught on the nail of the little toe. Tug... TUG... RIP!
Friday - Swear in pain as part of the nail is ripped away from the rest of the nail. Swear again as you notice that you are bleeding on the tile floor of your new house. Swear once more when you realise that there are no tissues or paper towel (or anything else that will help stop the bleeding) within easy arm reach. Hobble across the room to the kitchen bench and grab paper towel, then jury-rig a make-shift bad-aid of epic proportions and apply to injured toe before hobbling back to the couch. Sit back on the couch and wait for the bleeding to stop ... and promptly fall asleep. Wake up sore (in several spots, the couch is rather uncomfortable for that sort of thing when you're just shy of 2 metres in height) several hours later and stagger to the other end of the house and fall into deep(er) sleep.
Saturday - Time to leave the house and, by logical extension, time for shoes and socks... The socks don't hurt the mistreated toe at all, and you find out that the pain of footwear has been saved for the runners you have to put on next. Uncomfortable... After a few minutes the pain dies down (almost as fast as you wish your foot would do the same) and you're able to leave the house on a day suitable for baking mud bricks in record time. Spend the majority of the rest of your time away from the house (and in the stifling heat) strolling from furniture store to furniture store looking for new lounge suites, dining room tables and so on while at the same time trying to stop your three children from moving fast enough to start travelling back in time. During this time feel the pain increase as your footwear is turned into novel shaped vices by the swelling of your feet in the heat.
Sunday - It seems that 12 hours whipped by without further injury being done to my toe (what injuries were done previously today involve the sun, a shovel and a needlessly long hole - see below), so it's time for the universe to rectify that imbalance right sharp-ish. I'm supposed to love and support my children in their formative years, but where in the rule book does it say that I'm supposed to have an already injured toe run over by an overgrown 8 year old in a pair of in-line skates, twice? For that matter I'm also pretty sure that there was no mention made in any of the pre-natal parenting classes I managed to stay awake in that my middle child would be expected to drop furniture on me.
Take the two older children out to play with their new in-line skates for the first time, leaving the youngest asleep in his bed. While events may appear to show that Graeme had managed to lose his balance and fall while wearing in-line skates for the first time I'm damn sure that independent video evidence would show be-wheeled footwear wielded with expert and murderous intent. The more deranged members of the public may call this experience "bonding time", but being of a more lucid frame of mind I choose to call it "cruel and unusual". He's my son and I love him dearly, but until I can get a pair of steel-capped boots on the end of my feet he's on his own.
The mid-day pain session ended, time to go home, have lunch and prepare for the job of cleaning out the kid's rumpus room of all the crap that was dumped in there during the unpacking part of the move. Leave the room while it is decided that Nathan, the middle child with all the repressed anger management issues that implies, should drop an office chair on my foot at the first opportunity. Drop a chair on my foot he did, with bonus points awarded for the pin-point accuracy shown in hitting the much abused toe of my left foot and doing so while I was barefoot on a tile floor. Any minimal comfort that the carpet of the rumpus room would have provided during this was a tantalising 30cm away (dare I say it, but 30cm equals 1 foot), so while I was not really permitted to call him a little shit at this point I was allowed to think it. One point in Nathan's favour, he did allow me to sit on the freshly dropped chair so I could work my way through the pain - There's consideration for you right there.
A TRENCH TOO FAR
Dirt hates me. Subsoil clay hates me. The shovel I have to use to move that dirt and subsoil clay around hates me too. Even the sun hates me. Yesterday everything that hates me combined in an effort to make me lose what will to live I had left. The unbridled joy of breaking through sun-dried mud and topsoil was as nothing compared to the experience provided by trying to dig through clay that seemed to be a 50/50 mix of clay and super glue. Oh, did I mention the random chunks and surprise layers of concrete that I had to contend with? I think that by the time I gave up for the day (after a healthy supply of sunburn and blisters had been laid in) I got all of 2 metres worth of trench dug to suitable measure. 2 metres down, something like 10 to 12 more (or even more) to go. I'll dig more tonight after work, or leap in front of a Telstra van - I'm not too sure which.
3 comments:
So I take it "it was just like any other weekend".....
You do keep me so amused.......
Hope you toe gets better real quick.
No, it wasn't like any other weekend. There was more shovel for one thing, and marginally more embarrassment and pain than I have come to expect.
I thought Jen had decided to get them to do the trench..
And please.. do get a landline - if for no other reason than its an easier number for your "soon to be old enough to leave at home" kids to memorise and the safety factor, given Jen's inability to keep a mobile charged and locateable (not to mention us idiots who want to talk to you - that mobile plan is good but 2.40 for 20 minutes is nowhere as good as 25c and you know how your wife can talk *wink*).
love you all and hope that toe heals fast.
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