Look Out BelowAnd the Ramble project is complete and future Rambles will be cross-posted here. I hope at least a couple of people read this, Dawn.
The hits keep on coming. After “The Bicycle Incident” I figured that I was clear of further injury for a while. This is known in the psychology biz as “delusional optimism.” In fact, I find myself with enough cuts and scrapes all over my body that I could be confused with someone (at first glance only, of course) who actually works with his hands.
This could not be further from the truth. I still have the baby soft skin that can only come from work avoidance so aggressive and complete that, if the energy were better channeled, would result in “accomplishing something.” As if.
Anyway, the injuries started when we offered to catsit for my sister-in-law to be’s cat, Fluff. Fluff is an amiable, if skittish, cat and we hoped that bringing her by might help us with a mouse issue that we no longer have. We quickly realized that we would not solve our mouse problems with Fluff. As awesome as she is, she is large and not all that into moving, much less chasing mice. The best way to describe Fluff is as “a pile of cat.” This did not stop Fluff from making a quick dash for the border and stepping on my wrist when I tried to pet her, resulting in a deep gash. Probably due to cat allergies, I will apparently bear the Mark of Fluff for all of my days, as it has not and probably will not heal completely.
Then the bicycle thing.
This past weekend, Carrie decided that we should make our house less garrison-like and remove the security bars from the second floor. We are the only house on the street that has them and, besides the impact on light on our house, it virtually screamed “terrified white folks.” The plan was simple. With Carrie’s help, a strongman would lower the wrought-iron grate down to me, and I would guide it to the ground. Like I said, simple. To help us get the bars down to street level, we asked a neighbor and friend to help. He was on his way to the airport, though, so he could only help with one window. For the second window, we had to ask a stranger. Rather than handle the weight of the grate himself, and let Carrie slowly let out the slack on the twine we used as a backup restraint, he used the twine as the SOLE restraint on the grate.
I mentioned that I was to guide the grate from below, yes?
Needless to say, the twine wasn’t strong enough to hold the grate. I realized this when the grate wasn’t being slowly lowered to me but was instead tipping and hurtling toward me, just behind the screams of Carrie and her assistant. Good thing sound travels faster than gravity - and light faster than sound. That fortunate quirk of physics allowed me to move quickly out of the way (or as quickly as I move) enough for the grate to merely clip my arm and then bounce into my leg, rather than crash directly onto my head, turning me into a drooling moron. Carrie has gotten used to living with a moron, but I think the drooling would have been even more than she could bear.
So, no drooling but a hell of a contusion on my left arm and scrapes and bruises on both legs. I remained stoic and didn’t cry because I know that is the least that I could do to continue the charade that I am a man.
To sum up, since Carrie was on “upstairs” duty, I consider us even for crashing her side of the car into a tree on our honeymoon.
