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

I just saw a woman taking an oddly circuitous route down the street. She was practically doing figure-eights, and looked like she had one pint over the eight, or perhaps was developing paralysis down one side of her body.

It took me a couple of seconds to realise what was going on. Cobblestones and seven-inch stiletto heels don't really mix.

I'd like to see someone try walking in those down one road near me... no cobble stones... looks like a nice even, plain concrete/tiled street pedestrian only area...
Except... for the very oddly designed drain covers, on either side (about six to ten foot away from the shops either side), which have loverly little holes in them... Which, as I discovered, are a perfect size, to drop a white cane down I really thought I'd utterly lost it... one moment I've my cane in my hand, the next.... it had gone... just utterly vanished... Luckily three passers by all offered help, and between us, we lifted off the massive drain cover thing, and retrived it that'd be a nightmare in heels of any length...

Things (most) men never think of????????ß
How long have you got?

As much time as you need!

Just don't assume I'll be listening for all of it.

I remember how, in the sixties, my mother and (much older) sisters always got their penny heels stuck in the pavement and at railway crossings, breaking them off in the process and then limping home... shoemakers must have made a good living back then.

Ugh, we went to a wedding in August, and I wore just three-inch wedge heels, and the cobblestones at the venue nearly killed me. Oddly enough, it was more difficult prior to having four glasses of wine than afterward.

Maybe that's why is statistically linked to reduced numbers of heart attacks - it lowers the stress of walking in those things.

Those ones were the worst I've ever seen - the heel was virtually parallel to the sole of the foot.

Certain unions here were mildly ridiculed when they objected to employees in some workplaces being forced to wear ridiculous heels like that, but they were spot-on. It looks ing painful.

Well, i was wearing flat tennis shoes yesterday, stepped in a hole I didn't see, and either sprained my ankle or dislocated it. I don't know how other women don't kill themselves in heels, if I can do this much damage flat on the ground.

Maybe you should abandon footwear entirely, and be towed around on a little cart instead, for health and safety reasons!

(But seriously - it sounds painful. Keep your foot up - ice might help too.)

>Maybe you should abandon footwear entirely, and be towed around on a little cart instead, for health and safety reasons!

Don't think I haven't taken that into consideration!

It hurts a lot less than it sounds like it would. It's swollen, and discolored, but I think it could be a lot worse. Ice is helping, as did a day resting with books and the laptop. But yes, I am a klutz, and it is a wonder I don't injure myself more often, at my age.

hope its better soon... some of us are just destined to injur themselves... I cut myself with a butter knife this afternoon < mind, a lot less grusome than the last time, with the stanley/box knife

Oo... I was remiended of this conversation earlier, whilst drooling over the idea of a pair of boots I saw.... utterly, utterly impractible.... in an utterly insane way...:

I think they're called 'ballet boots', (as opposed to shoes).

as far as I can tell, they're got a 7 inch heel, which allows one's foot to point 100% down, towards the floor, creating an (I guess), absolutely impossible to walk in foot/leg positon... they did sound kinda cool though... err... cool or dangerous... or fatal... I forget which...

You gotta love 2legs. He inflicts more wounds on himself than a particularly bloodthirsty member of Opus Dei - and that's just the intentional ones - then says in puzzled tones "some people are just destined to injure themselves..."

I find my clumsiness is at its worst in the hour from when I get out of bed and to when I waken up.

I have to be really* really careful in the first thirty to forty minutes when I get up... and make coffee...
glass French-press... careful careful... in position, hurrah.
Kettle, fill with water... turn it on... don't electricute myself... hurrah...

coffee I ground up the day before, in the glass jar... glass... its glass... careful... hurrah.
Must get ground coffee into French-press... think... think... this isn't difficult... spoon... hurrah...
boiling hot water, from kettle... needs to be in the French-press... concentrate... in* the French-press... not* on my arm, foot, or head... again.... Hurrah

Mind..... I don't exaclty metion all my non-intential injurys... I've always got little burns on my hands and fingers, from cooking... well... its just easier to flip some stuff over in the frying pan, using my hands... and how am I meant to know that the gas hob is hot...

err... the more intential injurys... not self--inflicted, but with my... consent... they don't always make it onto hotoo eitehr... for reasons of decency.. and... well... soemthing

That cut on my hand/thumb, from the Stanley knife... still healing up that is gona leave a loverly scar, but considering I didn't get it stitched, not a bad job, if I do say so myself

I'm so* tempted to get a new pair of boots though... with more of a heel... I know... I know... I really* shouldln't.... but its so* tempting

(laugh)

I just had a mental image of 2legs shuffling out into the kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee, and pouring it on his foot.

I guess some of us are just accident-prone.

Those boots sound uncomfortable but kinky. Gotta have priorities, so kinkiness often wins out over comfort. Why else would anyone wear a thong?

There is a fairly long scar on my thumb from an injury that should have been stitched but wasn't, on account of my needle phobia. The last stitches I had were when I put my face through a windshield nearly 20 years ago.

I have no boot-related injuries to date, but I'm sure I will eventually.

I've a scar on my forehead, which is a boot related injury!
(err, no not a boot contacting my forehead, rather my falling over, whilst wearing boots... actually, that's probably more an alcohol related injury now i think abouts it... )

ahh; stiches ain't stiches anymore though; I'd probably have just needed steri strips put on the cut on my hand/thumb, or maybe glue, which they use a lot now too; even when I had all* my neurological/head opps, back in 1993 and 1994, they hardly used any actual* stiches; just metal staples (yeh, I've still got a tub somehwere with about fifty or sixty staples in, from those opperations)

I'm less likely to pour the coffee over my foot, than I am to pour directly boiling water from the kettle on to it... though I've not done that in ages... though tipping it over my hands is probalby a weekly occurance (eitehr making coffee, tea, or pouring it into a pan on teh stove top etc)...

Luckly, my hands don't seem to worry about boiling water anymore... Only direct gas-hob flame, or well-heated hob metal, or, indeed oven heating elements, or oven-hot pans/trays, seem to induce actual* burns these days in my hands

mind... I got these new fabulus oven gloves; I've had two sets of oven gloves, each costing about ten quid; one a single 'mitten' type, which was utterly useless (and subsequently developed holes in it anyhow), the other a double sort of glove, that was equally non-heat resistant Neither of which I've used much for ages; reaching instead for a teatowel when I've been lifting bread tins and trays out of the oven....

anyhow.... These new gloves... William got me (he doesn't have such a flippant view as I do myself, over my frequent burning and injuring myself in day-to-day activities, like cook,ing).

Anyhow, they're actual* commercial oven gloves... and come all the way up to my elbows! (rather useful when reaching into the recesses of the oven to retrieve a missing roll that fell off the back of a tray, or just when lifting out double-handed things, to stop my catching arm, or wrist, on the sides of the oven (oven inside)...

And... they actually work! Hmmm... having said which I'll still often not bother and just lift stuff directly out of the oven bare handedly

hmm... I guess some of us just have nothign that can save us from ourselves, and our own inability to not accident-prone ourselves

Mind... fingers are sometimes so* much easier... when I'm frying my pierogi, yeh, they're hot... yeh, the frying pan is hot, with oil in, and bits of kiewlbasa, and/or mushroom/onion etc... but... its so* much easier for me, just to use my fingers to flip the pierogi over! pah... heck, I test the pan is hot enough by putting my finger into the hot oil... probably why my hands have developed a certain degree of 'used to'-ness whn it comes to handling hot stuff... they're fairly* immune to it really

those boots... I so* want them... until, in fact, I noticed the price no way! I'm sure I can find soemthign equally as fetishistic and leather, adn black and heeled, with maybe a slight less than 7 inch heel (heck I've only ever walked in 2" heels, and that just about killed my feet/ankles )

I wear really really high heels sometimes, the only time I worry is on the cobbled streets in the old town part of Düsseldorf where it's all cobbled.

I don't see the point of really high heels. If I can't run, hike, and ride a horse in them, they're probably not the right shoes for me

Agreed... generally I only ever have one 'active' pair of shoes.
I have one pair of very smart, shiney, job interview, weddings, funeral etc., shoes (worn so infrequently they're still shop-shiney).
I've one pair of serious real hiking boots, brown leather, that I've had since I was 15 ( twenty odd years ago, very odd years some of them now I thnk about it).
and, at the moment, against my one pair of shoe policy, I have two* active pairs of dairly shoes:
one zip up leather boots (ankle high), very old, leaky, need replacing, but I put them on when I walk to the shop next door, as its so* close by, they're fine for that, and quick to put on).
Then I've my day to day shoes, my leather, lace up, army boots (waterproof, comfortable, ankle supporting, hardwearing, tight when done up properly, and ankle supporting), they're sort of ankle high, but come up onto the calf moreso than the zip-up boots.
err. basically I wear boots. all year round. in whatever the weather is, and they suit all conditions whether walkign about in town, cobbled streets, pavements, concrete, or down by the river mud, slippary sometimes, etc, on the beach, over the fens, through the graveyard, or, just wearing them down to the pub in the evenign

I could still new with a new pair of zip up boots... but I'd really like some with higher up the leg... closer to knee-high... and zip up, not lace... I think...and not* with a leather sole on them, as I wear leather soles out to quicly...
Oh, and I've an energency, spare pair of zip up leather boots (workman style cheapish ones of fthe the marke, u for spare like...)

mmmm... zip up thigh high boots, but with just* a little* bit more heel... that might work... say just an inch.. or two... or three.... I could wear them and not keep falling over... I think

See? It's those cobbles. Don't wear roller skates to go horse riding, and don't wear Wellington boots to go tightrope-walking.