It’s times like this that make you wonder if God is testing you.
It’s about 6am. A dream about Harry Potter taking too many Es in my garden wakes me up. I’d been out the day/night before, pondering the greatest questions while sitting in the sun drinking Strongbow. As I clutch my head, I realise that, given how little I remember, I was probably a bit drunk.
Counting on my fingers Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It’s been an expensive extra-weekend thing, with me spending most evenings gargling alcohol.
But this morning I woke up, really needing a piss, and went to my bedroom door only to find it locked. Eh? I gave the handle a quick jingle, but it was definitely, firmly, truly-madly-deeply locked. I don’t know why I’d got into my head it was a good idea to lock myself in, so grabbed my keys and jammed them in the door.
It didn’t unlock.
Crouching down, I peered at the edge of the door, turning the key back and forth. The bolt that my key controlled was working fine, but keeping me inside my room was another bolt going through my door.
I went from crouching to sort of sitting in an odd yoga position on my floor and pondered. This was either (a) quite a conundrum or (b) I’d taken more pills than Harry last night and my perception was fucked.
I tried again. Still locked.
Something not dissimilar to a memory jabbed me in the head. Charlene, my housemate, had come in last night. I had resorted to watching Desperate Housewives (and shocked to see 24’s notorious President Logan has now moved to suburbia and needs a new kidney) and she came in to say she needed the shower at about 8am today.
Then I remembered. She’d gone, and as she left, my door handle fell off and we started laughing. Oh, what joy it is living in a house-share. Little calamities become the only thing you really have in common with each other and you learn to milk them.
AHAHAHA THE DOOR HANDLE FELL OFF we yelled.
She put it back on, and left.
Truly I felt like Sherlock Holmes as I paced up and down my room, my bladder fit to burst. I also had that fuzzy morning breath smell circulating my room, and it was starting to annoy me.
What I knew at this point - at 6.23am - was that my door was seemingly locked from the outside. I was inside. One housemate was at home in Bromley for the weekend, one was not on speaking terms with me (and would relish the thought of me being stuck inside the top room of a block of flats) while another - yes! Charlene had to get up early to have that 8am shower. She can help.
I got my phone and sent her a text, wondering how best to phrase the situation. Would texting her the lyrics to ‘Help!’ by The Beatles be a good idea? No. The reference would be lost. I’ll keep it simple, but also lighthearted, since I don’t want to scare the girl.
Hi! Fuck, sore head today. AHAHAHA THE DOOR HANDLE FELL OFF! In all seriousness, I’m trapped in my room, I’m about to piss myself, and it’s starting to make me have panic attacks.
What if Charlene left early, and there was nobody in the house? What would I do then!? I wondered if I could ring a Fireman and he might hack the door apart with an axe, but is that what I wanted?
I tried to recall one housemates words…she’d had this happen before, I think. What did she say she did? With my mind riddled with other thoughts - my breath, my sunburn, and the need to wee being just three - I found it hard to concentrate.
Then it came to me. She screwed the door handle off, and there was a steel rod going through the middle of the door that the handles were attached to. Sometimes, her handle misaligned, or something, and you needed to guide it back to the handle so it would work.
This felt like a small triumph, but it was fleeting. I didn’t have a screwdriver. In life, when you need something you don’t have, it’s hard to stop berating yourself for never having what is now considered a salient piece of equipment. As I tried using all manner of things in lieu of a screwdriver, I pictured the hardware shop down the road. Stupid, stupid me for not having a screwdriver.
As soon as I get this fucking door open, I thought to myself, I’m going to invest in a good flat-head screwdriver. For I had sunk to a new low, snapping a pair of tweezers (my good tweezers) and using one leg to gingerly unscrew the door handle so I could tinker about.
This felt like one of many hurdles that seem to follow me in life. For those unaware, I’ve locked myself out the flat, I’ve found pigeons roosting on my wardrobe, and at work this week, I spent some time ringing my own number, angry that the person I was supposed to be interviewing had a dead phone line.
Finally, the door handle fell off. I twisted the central bar and my door popped open with a satisfying click. Wandering into my hallway, a pair of feet whipped around the corner and the bathroom door was bolted shut. Then, after a moment, the sound of rushing water. Of course, Charlene needed the shower at 8am.
It would be some time before I could finally have a piss.
Monday 25 April 2011
Saturday 2 April 2011
Surgery and stuff
Inspired by Sam Parker, who recently had his tonsils out and blogged about it, I realised I might be (literally) sitting on a goldmine of writing ideas following my own surgery last week. Yes, my blog focuses on The Real Real World, but I'm sure there is a tenuous link there.
So, last Thursday I went to the doctors with the feeling I had tonsillitis. I had it a lot at University and felt, after fainting in the shower, I must be coming down with it again. My throat was swollen, my squeaky voice was replaced with a horse, gravelly murmur and I had a penchant for hacking coughs. All the signs were there.
"Well, your tonsils do look quite horrible," said my doctor, staring into my mouth. "But they're not infected."
I was stumped. As my doctor mused, biting the end of her pen, I half expected Sherlock Holmes to burst out the medicine cabinet, desperate to solve this marvel. Boy thinks he has tonsillitis, but doesn't. Guuh? Unfortunately, something else happened.
"Let's get you on the bed and give you a physical," she cooed. I'll point out at this point that my doctor, while lovely, was the size of SuBo and had hands like shovels. Her feeling my every curve was going to be rather harrowing.
So, after a bit of a feel, 1/3 of which I found strangely arousing, my doctor found the problem. What I thought was a nagging lower-back pain, something I expected I could ignore until it reared its ugly head in my later years and force me to stoop like I was inspecting pavements, actually turned out to be a big ol' infection.
Naturally, I'll leave the ins 'n' outs to one side, but let me break it down. I had to go and have some surgery to rid me of the infection that was purging my body, spreading like red wine knocked over a tablecloth. I imagine the infection looks like this:
After surgery, I'd need about 4 weeks of doing sweet FA so my wound, which wasn't allowed to be stitched up, could be padded and re-padded with gauze until it healed naturally. Healing naturally? I'd just read Harry Potter 5, whereby they go to a magical hospital and a simple spell heals most wounds. This, in contrast, was a massive downer for me. Alohomora, or some shit.
When my family heard I was ill, and worse so, I was in hospital, they naturally assumed, in their Northern way, it had something to do with terrorists. After explaining none of London was blown up (to my knowledge; I had spend all day in A&E being examined by trainee doctors, who knows what I missed?), they still decided they'd come all the way to London to check I was ok.
After surgery, I was discharged and went back to Carlisle with the rents, which, due to the effects of morphine was dream-like and passed quickly.
It feels as if this tale is age-old, one I recite countless times, but it only happened a week ago. A week. Seven sodding days. Because the problem with sitting at home and doing sweet FA is that time goes very slowly. My Nintendo 64 has been sold, and my Nintendo Wii has bad games on it. Daytime TV is a clown-car of mild idiots, from the goofy homoeroticism on To Buy Or Not To Buy? to the vampish harpies on Loose Women. On Friday, they invited Ronan Keating to sing a song on the show, before clawing at him with their talons and devouring his manhood.
Luckily it's not been all bad; FHM, who miss me dearly while I'm away, send me series 1 of The Wire on DVD, which is good, because I never got into it, and always wanted to, and now I like it. I'm also going to get into Mad Men since everyone wails on about it a lot.
Next post will be detailing my hellish existence in the house as home comforts turn to nightmarishly dull things. Calm down, I know it's exciting.
So, last Thursday I went to the doctors with the feeling I had tonsillitis. I had it a lot at University and felt, after fainting in the shower, I must be coming down with it again. My throat was swollen, my squeaky voice was replaced with a horse, gravelly murmur and I had a penchant for hacking coughs. All the signs were there.
"Well, your tonsils do look quite horrible," said my doctor, staring into my mouth. "But they're not infected."
I was stumped. As my doctor mused, biting the end of her pen, I half expected Sherlock Holmes to burst out the medicine cabinet, desperate to solve this marvel. Boy thinks he has tonsillitis, but doesn't. Guuh? Unfortunately, something else happened.
"Let's get you on the bed and give you a physical," she cooed. I'll point out at this point that my doctor, while lovely, was the size of SuBo and had hands like shovels. Her feeling my every curve was going to be rather harrowing.
So, after a bit of a feel, 1/3 of which I found strangely arousing, my doctor found the problem. What I thought was a nagging lower-back pain, something I expected I could ignore until it reared its ugly head in my later years and force me to stoop like I was inspecting pavements, actually turned out to be a big ol' infection.
Naturally, I'll leave the ins 'n' outs to one side, but let me break it down. I had to go and have some surgery to rid me of the infection that was purging my body, spreading like red wine knocked over a tablecloth. I imagine the infection looks like this:
I imagine 'groo' is the sort of noise an infection makes.
After surgery, I'd need about 4 weeks of doing sweet FA so my wound, which wasn't allowed to be stitched up, could be padded and re-padded with gauze until it healed naturally. Healing naturally? I'd just read Harry Potter 5, whereby they go to a magical hospital and a simple spell heals most wounds. This, in contrast, was a massive downer for me. Alohomora, or some shit.
When my family heard I was ill, and worse so, I was in hospital, they naturally assumed, in their Northern way, it had something to do with terrorists. After explaining none of London was blown up (to my knowledge; I had spend all day in A&E being examined by trainee doctors, who knows what I missed?), they still decided they'd come all the way to London to check I was ok.
After surgery, I was discharged and went back to Carlisle with the rents, which, due to the effects of morphine was dream-like and passed quickly.
It feels as if this tale is age-old, one I recite countless times, but it only happened a week ago. A week. Seven sodding days. Because the problem with sitting at home and doing sweet FA is that time goes very slowly. My Nintendo 64 has been sold, and my Nintendo Wii has bad games on it. Daytime TV is a clown-car of mild idiots, from the goofy homoeroticism on To Buy Or Not To Buy? to the vampish harpies on Loose Women. On Friday, they invited Ronan Keating to sing a song on the show, before clawing at him with their talons and devouring his manhood.
Luckily it's not been all bad; FHM, who miss me dearly while I'm away, send me series 1 of The Wire on DVD, which is good, because I never got into it, and always wanted to, and now I like it. I'm also going to get into Mad Men since everyone wails on about it a lot.
Next post will be detailing my hellish existence in the house as home comforts turn to nightmarishly dull things. Calm down, I know it's exciting.
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