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Hayes House Pages

Tuesday 13 September 2011

The Stupid Gene

I often wonder why I started a blog when my life is so dull, but then Stig will do something epicly stupid or the kids will astound me with some new ingenius method of hellraising and ta-dah! I have new material. Unfortunately even they've been letting me down recently. It seems to be me who's causing all the trouble, but then when I think about it, I've always done a pretty good job of being stupid myself. Gerry used to call me a 'Cooking Falamity'.

My friend, Kelly, delights in my random unfortunate incidents. So much so that it has come to the point that when I perform one, I have to ring her immediately to tell her about it. A consequence of this is that even as these ridiculous things are happening to me, I can already see the funny side and imagine her squealing with delight and hurling well-deserved insults down the phone at me.

I could tell you about any of the numerous times that I have fallen down various stairs or tripped in public but they are the least embarrassing of my catalogue of fuck-ups. I once accidentally flung a carrot accross the aisle of Waitrose. I still have no idea how I did it, but it narrowly missed a young child. Then there was the time I was living in my first flat. It was around the time Gillette brought out the womens' shaving gel. I had only ever owned one can of this stuff before and the pump on it had been faulty. It took ages to squeeze out enough gel to shave one armpit.

So I was in Morrisons, carefully examining the canisters on the shelf before me to make sure that my next shaving experience wasn't going to be as painfully slow as those of the past few weeks. I removed the lid and sniffed at the top, smelt quite nice. Then I gently pushed the pump down to test if the stuff was actually going to come out of the can.

A narrow jet of blue-green shot about 3 meters out across the aisle. This was a slow motion incident. It travelled leisurely across the aisle and as I watched it, I thought what a pretty colour it was, then told myself off because I had just propelled shaving gel across a supermarket aisle and I was admiring the bloody colour. Bringing myself back to reality, I glanced ahead of the parabolic arch to judge its trajectory, only to spot a woman who was stood scrutinizing the toilet rolls. I considered running over and shoving her out of the goo's path, but figured not only was this a tad dramatic, but I'd never get to her in time. I wanted to call out but by now it was too late and I was scared to draw attention myself because the splattering was now inevitable. A silent prayer ended just in time for me to witness her getting hit in the side of her head by a turquoise blob.

Miraculously she didn't seem to have noticed. But then she lifted her hand to her hairline, dangerously close to the gunk, and scratched. The shiny green blob instantly transformed into a frothing white lather. Much to her husband's bewilderment, it expanded to fill most of the side of her head. I scuttled off to the furthest checkout I could find. As I walked back past the end of the aisle on my way out of the supermarket, I noticed that a small crowd gathered around them.

I thought it was just a natural part of growing up, feeling awkward and embarrassing yourself. There was a time when I thought I would grow out of it, and develop into a grounded young woman who was in control. Alas I was deluding myself; it turns out that this 'gift' a lifelong affliction.

I was blowing my nose recently. Not a difficult or complicated task, you would think. But still, I managed to yank my nose stud out with my tissue, and shove it right up my nostril in one swift motion. Kelly was overjoyed.

I used to have a pair of slobbing about trousers. They weren't particularly attractive. They had some kind of shoelace type material threaded around the bottom of each leg, but they were so comfy that I lived in them when I was in the house. So, I was wearing my slobbing about pants one day whilst farting about in the kitchen. I wanted toasties but the toastie maker was up on top of the kitchen wall cupboards. I'm a bit of a dwarf so staring up at the space between the top of the cupboards and the ceiling, from all the way down on the kitchen floor, presented an interesting challenge. I really am too overweight to be shuffling about on the kitchen worktops but nevertheless I heaved myself up above the washing machine, figuring if the worktop buckled, I would be supported by the washer.

The washing machine had one of those fake cupboard doors to match the rest of the kitchen (why do people feel the need to hide the fact that they actually wash their clothes?). As I fumbled about for the toastie maker on top of the dusty cupboard, I planned my descent. I knew my stumpy legs wouldn't reach the ground and I didn't want to risk jumping down with the added weight of the gizmo (never mind that it was 0.001% of my total bodyweight). I thought I could stick my foot in the indented bit of the washer door and use it to 'climb' down. I stood at the on the worktop and absentmindedly pushed the mock cupboard door open with my foot as I wrapped the wire around the toastie maker so I wouldn't get hit in the face with a flying plug. I was so prepared, I had thought of everything!

As I fell to the floor, again in slow motion, I couldn't understand what had gone wrong. Why weren't my legs below me? Why was my foot all that way up in the air? It was an agonising wait till I was to make contact with the tile floor. I fell silently through the air hoping that my vast arse wouldn't break any floor tiles, because then the humiliation really would be complete. I hit the floor, flew back against the cooker and almost knocked it through the wall and into our back yard. My initial thought was 'Kelly is going to love this'. As I lay on the floor with my head partially in the oven and one leg still flailing about in the air above me, I looked up and realised that the stupid shoelace thing in my trouser leg had got caught on the stupid fake cupboard door handle.

I had another incident with a kitchen cupboard. More door handles to be precise (brass ones of course, A-La-Stig). This time it all happened so quickly, unlike falling off a worktop or down the stairs. I was carrying a drink back from the kitchen. I walked past our weird cupboard-under-the-stairs thingy, when all of a sudden my drink went flying and I was aware of a very unusual feeling in my nether regions. It transpires that the door handle (being at waist height) had caught the side of my pants as I brushed past it. In seconds-from-disaster fashion, I was blissfully unaware that events had been set in motion and it was already too late for me. I forged ahead, oblivious, until the fabric reached its limit and twanged me back, causing my drink to fling itself across the room and my underwear to shoot violently up my arse. Kelly was in the house that day I thought she might actually have a stroke.

I type this as I lie here with a broken leg, a result of a clash between myself and the garden fence. Kelly babysat my kids while Stig took me to A and E, and predictably wet herself as I struggled to hobble to the car. I won't go into detail except to say that the fence won this time, and that a few karate lessons 18 years ago does not Bruce Lee make.

3 comments:

  1. im crying here - especially about the shaving gel. too funny!!

    mandy

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  2. I also wet myself reading this!! You are crazy!!!

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  3. My sister has the same name as you, but she is much more interesting.

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