Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Lest Darkness Come Upon You...

And it did.

There was I, minding my own business, when Pow!! it all went dark.

I was not happy.

Some background is needed here, I guess. It's been a bitsa sort of work week - bista this bitsa that - Monday, I was digging fence-post holes (fences for a short run of 3 new-build houses that we've been working on), Tuesday, painting the outside walls of those houses, today I was a carpet-fitter's mate, laying new stair carpets inside the houses.

The fitter is an excellent carpet man. Does a really neat job, quick, efficient, tidy. He is however not the brightest of folk when it comes to anything other than fitting carpets.

We had huge rolls of carpet. You start at the bottom, measure up, cut the required length at the top, fit & tack, and take the roll onto the next house (using a parcel-trolley until it's small enough/light enough to carry). So there we were, carpet cut & ready to fix, we started in the middle, I worked down, trimming & tacking into place, he worked up. The first two houses went smoothly. Then on the third I finished slightly ahead of him. "All done," I yelled up the stairs. "Give me a hand with the left over," he replied. I stepped onto the stairs in order to join him on the landing and carry the remains of the roll down as usual.

It was then he had one of his (very frequent) common-sense malfunctions. Instead of waiting for me to reach him he decided to chuck the carpet to me. Without warning me first. He simply lifted it to the bannister and let go.

Carpet is dark. You cannot see see through it. It is also heavy. When you have one foot in the air, poised to climb another step, and carpet descends upon you there's not a lot you can do but fall over. And you can't get untangled from the carpet when you are lying on part of it. Especially when you are in great pain because you landed on the box on carpet-tacks that were still on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

I have several puncture wounds in a certain part of my anatomy that I would rather not have puncture wounds in.

The fitter came downstairs, and instead of helping, laughed. I did not share his jollity. I kicked out, completely forgetting I was wearing steel-toecap-boots, and since I was still in darkness, unable to see where I was aiming. The doc said he's bruised and will require a week to heal. I won't need as long, but the antiseptic stings.

I do hope he wasn't planning on starting a family any time soon.

Be careful out there.

Goodnight and may your God/s go with you

Ze

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

OK - this has got to be the last accident for you this year! Please watch out for flying carpets from now on. Well I guess that really wont make much of a difference as you do seem to be able to attract a new kind of mishap with out much of an effort.

Be well.

UK