Tuesday, October 09, 2012

I Should Have Touched Wood

It was Canada's Thanksgiving Day yesterday, hope our Canadian readers had a good day.

OK - onwards.

It really is a bad idea to tempt fate. (I wonder where that expression originated. The Bible probably. Or Shakespeare. All the best quotes do.)

When I wrote my little bit last week I really should have touched wood. (In England we "touch wood" we don't "knock on wood" like USAmericans do).

You know that little smug phrase about it not being me in hospital this time. Boasting that I wasn't injured was just begging for trouble.

Thursday morning started reasonably well. The weather wasn't too bad. I was a little tired (had been Wednesday night as well) and I hadn't slept particularly well. I wasn't really looking forward to work. There wasn't any painting or papering to be done until this week, so I was helping out the brickies. They were putting breeze-blocks inside some of the brick shells. (The houses are brick outside with breeze-block inside and a cavity between the two that is filled with insulation.) My job was basically fetch-and-carry. You can't get a fork-lift truck into some of the spaces on a part-built house, so we use a thing called a hand operated pallet truck. They carry a huge load, but they're a PITA to manoeuvre. And I was the muggins manoeuvring it.

The house I was working with was on a slight slope. Which wasn't helping. The slope led to a grassed area which ended at the wall. The wall ran down - not up. At this point you're about 1200cm - four feet - above the ground. Turning a pallet truck around a 90 degree bend, into a doorway which is only just far enough from the edge to allow the forks in. The handle has to stay at an angle. And the operator wishes they'd thought to wear crampons, or bring a rope and pitons. Because you are walking a very tight (and unsteady) line along a wall made of a single-row of bricks.

I spent all morning doing that. To and fro. Pushing that damned truck. My shoulder ached, my legs ached and I was right fed-up.

You can almost see it coming, can't you??

By the afternoon I was too tired to be doing this. I knew it, the boss knew it, I'd asked to be shifted but been told there was no-one else to do the job. Against my better judgement I carried on. Just after three o'clock it all went pear-shaped.

My foot slipped slightly and the truck went round the corner too close to the edge. The truck is heavy. It had a full load of breeze-blocks on it. There was no way I was going to be able to stop it. It slid backwards, sending me over the edge. And it followed me.

I pushed away from it as hard as I could. If I was going to hit the deck, fine, but I was NOT going to have it landing on top of me!! I rolled over in mid-air to protect my bad shoulder and then I hit the ground.

Do you know what happens when you hit concrete paving at the end of a four-foot fall?? You break your right wrist. And you twist your knee. And you have bruises all down your left side. And a black eye.

The doctor in the A & E dept brought up my records and said, "My, you're a regular here, aren't you." and he laughed. I didn't find it quite as funny.

So now I'm off work. With my wrist in a splint. And I'm losing wages again. I came to an agreement with the boss. If he wasn't so bloody stupid as to try and make me pay for the truck, and the paving, and a pallet of blocks (none of which survived the fall), I wouldn't sue him for failing in his health-and-safety regs in not providing a barricade to prevent me falling over.

My cousin said I'm not a person. I'm a catastrophe. I think she's right.

My sister just said, "Oh no, not again."

Ze

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