This month I suffered a nasty graze to my shin after I rolled out of the side door of my van. But I am ok, despite a small concussion. I am lucky to be blessed with formidable recuperative powers.
The incident occurred at the tail end of a particularly deep ‘power nap’ (a phrase I picked up by reading an American novel!), and thus seemed very violent and abrupt. In fact, I felt that I was being attacked in my sleep yet AGAIN, though I was unable to deduce in the split second before my return to full consciousness whether the attacker was likely to be a policeman or lady, a ‘young thug’, a disgruntled customer, or some kind of maniac dwarf.
As it turned out, it was none of these suspects, just the gentle undulation of my own body as I pondered in my dream state the sweet embrace of another (Natalie Portman. Or possibly the leprechaun type woman in those car loan ads).
The upshot of the ‘grazing incident’ was that I was forced to stay at home and allow my body to ‘regroup’ for a number of days. This gave me not only the opportunity to resume my rudely interrupted pixie dream, it also offered the chance to look back and pontificate about some of the more dramatic incidents I have been involved in during my long professional career.
For instance, on one occasion, whilst I was contemplating the installation of a dome camera outside an old peoples’ home, an ambulance came roaring past me, its siren blaring, nearly frightening me out of my reverie. The upshot was that I stumbled forward into the path of an oncoming OAP lady, who was forced to take evasive action and rapidly move herself and her walking frame out of my trajectory.
And while I managed to regain my balance and steady myself, this unfortunate woman, through no fault of her own collided with a Vauxhall Astra that was reversing in her general direction. Ironically, the very ambulance that had roared past us earlier was required to come back and spirit her away for major invasive hip surgery.
But the worst aspect of the whole sorry incident was that an inconsiderate ambulanceman managed to roll the trolley carrying the old dear over my right foot, causing me considerable suffering and the sad decision to postpone the dome installation job until after my full recovery, which was in several weeks’ time, thanks to the bad bruise I received.
Oh well – just another adventure in the life of a crazy installer, eh?
On another occasion, a client was discussing with me his need for an intruder alarm system at his small late night fried chicken establishment. As we were speaking, standing outside his very shop, a fly made its way onto his face, its filth-strewn legs dancing a merry dance over his cheek-flesh. My client made no move to swat it away.
I looked on, horrified, as he continued to speak, seemingly oblivious to this odious creature’s treatment of his visage as some form of insect playing field. Was it the years of fried chicken preparation which had coated his face in a full layer of fat and grease, both attracting the fly, and making its very presence a mystery to him – unable, as he was, to feel its touch through his oily mask?
It’s not for me to say. It’s mere conjecture on my behalf. But could we not postulate that the very stuff of this gent’s work, his artery-hardening lifeblood, his greasy paycheque – that this very stuff had effectively blinded him to the mere possibility that his face was now acting as a fly-attractant?
We could. At this stage the gentleman had made no move to shoo the fly, and the creature seemed more at home than ever. My frustration peaked.
Without thinking, my hand darted towards his face, and although I only planned to brush the fly away, the force of my obsession seemed to take control of my limb, and I ended up punching the chap with full force on the left facial cheek. I was stunned, though possibly not as stunned as the client, who reeled back into oncoming traffic, clutching his face, and was hit by a passing ambulance, shattering his hip. He was forced to undergo invasive hip replacement surgery.
Meanwhile, the upshot of the whole thing was that my severely bruised hand forced me to take several weeks off for recuperative purposes, delaying not only this particular job but much of the other valuable work I could have been doing had I arranged it beforehand.
