I am a shambles. I know that now. There is no denying it. But instead of keeping the amusing anecdotes of my shambolic life to myself, I thought, why not ease the pain by sharing the laughter and turn something not terribly good into something, which at the end of the day, brings a faint smile to the faces of those who read about it and shake their heads at my misdemeanours.
And so I begin - A Shambles' Tale: Part 1
Last week I fell down the stairs at work. For most people that would be enough embarrassment to last them at least a month, but for me it was only the beginning. I was merrily trotting down the grand staircase of my grand office building, caught my heel in my trousers leg and down I went. Luckily there was only one spectator, who simply ran away. It hurt, I'll admit that, but not too much and I figured, I'm hard, I can take it, and so went happily along, business as usual.
That night, a fair amount of alcohol was consumed at my work's social committee quiz night (for which my team came last - of course!), and the consumption of alcohol continued for the entire weekend as I joined my old uni mates back down in Falmouth for a mini reunion.
Monday I was still hung-over from the weekend and spent most of the day in a bit of a daze. Tuesday I started to notice that my ankle had become larger than usual and somewhat more painful, but I couldn't really think why. I thought it was probably down to drunken stumblings at the weekend and it would no doubt fix itself in time. Wednesday - my ankle and calf had merged into one. Thursday - time to see the doctor.
A sprain apparently. Most certainly caused by the tumble I took a week before. Great, I thought, that's no big deal. Wrong. I was informed it would take longer to mend than a break. Whatever - its been a week already, I'll be fine, I thought and hobbled out of the surgery, prescription in hand, happy I'd been able to get out of work early for a very brief appointment. At home I found an old ankle support, figured that would do and put it on.
The next day I carried on - again, business as usual. (Shall I mention the bit about me having no money, having to bunk the train then getting caught and given a fine only to realise it was payday and no need to bunk at all... maybe not.) So, the day went as normally as my days go and after work I figured as I had some money in the bank it might be an idea to go shopping after work - get some Christmas presents early, that sort of thing.
Fifteen minutes into my shop and my whole foot was throbbing, really uncomfortable. I headed for Boots chemist and ordered my prescription and was told to come back in ten minutes. I noticed that Argos was opposite and so limped over there to kill some time. As I was queuing up to make a purchase the pain was becoming unbearable and so as the queue moved, I hopped. Fair enough I was getting some strange looks but I didn't really care. I got to the counter and as I went to get my purse out, I momentarily forgot about my ankle, put all of my weight on that side and it all went wrong.
The feeling hit me like a spade in the face, nausea, dizziness, agony. I clung on to the cash desk. My vision became tunnelled as the black closed in. I mumbled to the girl behind the counter ...I'm going to faint... and kept upright long enough to witness her looking frantically around shouting 'help, um... help!..' before it all went black.
When I opened my eyes I was sat on a chair next to the counter with about ten blurred faces staring down at me. All the contents of my bag and purse were scattered around and I thought to myself ... blimey, that was a bit dramatic!! I was shaking so much I couldn't speak and just watched as everyone picked up all my stuff and shoved it in my bag. After all the usual first-aid business that went on and a glass of water I felt pretty normal again yet very much aware that I couldn't walk.
I was told that the reason I had passed out was a combination of my badly damaged ankle that I should never have been walking on in the first place and the child's ankle support I was wearing which had managed to cut off circulation to my foot - oops!!
So how to get home ... Rob couldn't get there for over an hour and I wasn't going to just sit in Argos all that time and so the staff came up with a fantastic idea of providing me with an electronic Granny scooter to bomb around Lakeside shopping centre in. I was mortified. I protested and said I would rather hop. But no. It would not be responsible of them to allow me to do that. And so out the scooter came, and on I got. Amongst the pain and humiliation a small grin started to form on my face. As a kid I had always wanted a go on one of these and now was my chance, I couldn't pass it up!!
The staff member looked down at me with a concerned expression. Can you actually drive?? She asked me. I proudly produced my newly acquired pink driving licence .. Yep! And off I went.
As I charged out of Argos on my new toy I realised that despite appearances, those little scooters can go pretty damn fast if you take them off Granny setting. This was going to be fun!! I charged into boots, swung a corner, headed for the prescription counter to pick up my medicine and drove straight into a display.
One thing I realised .. people are nice to the disabled!! It turns out that ruining the carefully constructed display was not my fault; not because of my reckless driving of a Granny Mobile .. but it was their fault for putting the display in my way!! Bonus!
And so I found myself, on a Friday night, not in a pub like any normal 24 year old, but timing myself doing laps round lakeside shopping centre in a Granny Buggy.
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