h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Most of you already know how accident prone I am. I am a klutz!

I think I am going to keep a list of the many strange ways I manage to injure myself.

This morning, I cut my finger- quite badly!- changing a toner cartridge. Then we had to place a service call for a tech to come clean all the blood out of the bottom of the printer.

If anyone else is as skilled at getting hurt as I am, please share yours, too. That way I won't feel like such a dork.

Daft mare.

Mind you, I once broke my toe by dropping a six pack of soft drinks on it.

Oh, have a look through Fizzymouse's journals. She's as daft (if not more) as you.

I hope your finger doesn't hurt too much.

I also have two scars in my hand from trying to dig the stone out of an avocado a really stupid way - holding half an avocado in one hand and sticking the point of a knife in the stone. The knife slipped and went in right to the bone. Ow.

Did you get that? I made the same mistake *twice*.

Oh...and the time I tried to change a ceiling light fitting. I had to use a really high stepladder. I decided that the easiest way to remove the old one was just to cut it off with a kitchen knife. So there was this loud BANG!!! and I found myself lying on the floor. Yup. Forgot to turn the supply off. I still have the knife with a notch in its blade.



Or when we decided to renovate the huge, fold-out out shutters over the bay windows in our tenement flat. A lot of Glasgow tenements were modernised/vandalised in the 1970s and these shutters had been painted in and hadn't seen the light of day for years. So I was up the big ladders again (you need high ladders in tenements) and I was pulling and pulling...and then various things happened in slow motion...the shutters fell towards me...I tried to hold the shutters...I fell off the ladders backwards...I landed on the floor...the shutters fell on top of me...the ladders fell over onto the shutters...

(lovely decor in that flat. high, ornate ceilings; polished floors. i miss it.)

... or you could have printed in blood... they always do that in bad horror movies...

"The Revenge of The Office Appliances part XLIV - Printed in Blood"


Hope you're on the mend and not too badly

Our place has 12" ceilings, but I have this long pole thingy which you can use to grab the bulbs and replace them. It works for the bulbs in the ceiling fans and all but one light fixture. My solution for the can lamps in the kitchen is just not to use them much.

I fall down a LOT- almost as much as poor Fizzy. Especially on stairs or uneven sidewalks.

I don't cut my fingers with kitchen knives much (I have an avocado tool made of silicone ) but when I use my ceramic knives I frequently cut the tips off of my fingernails.

Once I cut myself so badly with a plastic spoon, I needed to have three stitches.

And you'll all remember a few years ago when I tripped over the cat, broke my nose, had four stitches, and gave myself two shiners that lasted for nearly a month.

Thanks, DQ! I sliced into the tip of my finger on whatever metal thingy is under the rollers that feed the paper.

It *was* printing in blood- it was in a check printer and it was messing up the MICR lines.

You cut yourself with a *spoon*?!! We'll have to change your name to Reese.

I stuck the spoon into something I got at the school caf (chili, I think) and the bowl part broke off, the handle jabbed through the side of the container and into my hand.

I managed to tattoo myself with a pencil - the lead snapped off under the skin after I accidentally stabbed myself.

I've also done the being flung backward by electricity thing - accidentally drilled into the main power cable just *before* the breaker box! Old house, it wasn't up to code and the cables were just laid willy nilly

And just yesterday, I was soooo proud of myself for staying on my friend's horse when it bucked going into a jump - but then managed to trip over a stone and fall backwards into the muck while taking the saddle off. You're not the only one!

No, no.

>>We'll have to change your name to Reese.

Geddit?

Well I gave it my best shot.

One workmate had to be kept away from scissors, super glue and electrical transformers.

She even managed to get armed police to turn up in her office, offering her a safe escort from the building!!!

Actually, it was a false alarm

>Geddit?

No, but I suspect I must be missing something.

Super Glue... keep me away from that stuff, too, yes! In my early twenties, I worked in automotive retail. A district manager was coming to visit one day, and he wanted to congratulate me for having successfully completed some technical certifications. I feigned illness to avoid having to shake his hand, but the real reason was that my right hand had gotten some super glue on it and was firmly stuck to the telephone receiver.

Reese With-a-spoon!

I'm wasted on this audience.

Ah, I see. I don't think I've ever seen a film with her in it so it didn't register, I admit. Sorry.

It's much too early in the day to be wasted. Well, maybe in the UK it's not.

I only have a vague idea who she is, I'll admit, but it was too good a line to pass up.

Or so I thought.

Pearls before swine, I tell you, pearls before swine.

Are we talking bad luck, or plain pure stupidity? For the latter, my best one happened as a kid. It was the most Homer Simpsonish thing I've ever done. I put my hand (covered in hazelnut yoghurt) on the light switch. Zzzzzzzzap! And I thought "wow, what happened there? That felt all weird and tingly!"

So I did it twice more, ignoring the blue flickering I could see under the plastic, just to feel it again and see what was going on. The third time was when the electrons lost their patience and flung me against the far wall. Weirrrrrrrrd sensation.

Light switches in the USA zapped me all the time, too.