Tuesday 22 January 2008

Two fruit, rough cut.

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They say each and every one of us has a different story to tell, a different history, something that sets us apart from our fellows.

We are, each in our own way, unique.

We were discussing this the other day and it was agreed that I was probably the only person in the world who had severed a tendon in his foot while making marmalade.

Please, no flowers, it was a couple of years ago now, but I warrant that it is a feat (or in this case foot) that may never be matched.

In retrospect, I did a silly thing. It is always in retrospect that things look silly. At the time it seemed perfectly reasonable. I had cooked the marmalade, tested its setting point with a cold saucer, stirred correctly, burnt nothing, retrieved the seeds. Everything was just fine. Until it came to filling the jars.

Why, I thought, not just line them up along the bench and pour the marmalade in from the pan? Much less mess than using cups and funnels and stuff to fill the jars.

So I lined up the jars along the bench and, holding the pan out in front of me, poured the marmalade into the jars, pouring toward me.

Big mistake.

I clipped a jar with the pan and it fell onto the floor. I, holding the pan, leapt backwards.

Let's leave me for a moment, poised in the middle of my backward leap.

The jar, obeying all the laws of Newtonian physics, accelerated towards the floor where it smashed into numerous pieces. One such piece, about one inch (2.5cm) in diameter skated across the floor directly away from the bench, tumbling end over end as it went.

Returning to me, I had taken the scenic, parabolic and slightly slower route but the glass and I arrived at the same place at the same time. Unfortunate timing meant that it was pointing upwards as I came down, piercing my foot and severing both the nerve and tendon to the large toe on the way in.

"Are you alright?" asked my wife.

"Um ... no ... "

◊◊◊

Footnote: The only remaining legacy is that I have no downward pressure from my big toe on my right foot. This in turn means that I cannot wear thongs. (Or flip-flops or jandals, depending on where you live.)
...

15 comments:

  1. Despite your humorous telling, I winced and cringed and hurt in sympathy...

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  2. So did the marmalade turn out to be good?????

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  3. Obviously a candidate for the "Darwin Awards", Lee.

    I managed to severe nerves in my ankle at Tai Chi classes (still have a dead ankle). The instructor made it look so graceful, too!

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  4. ouch...
    and u told it ooo so gracefully....

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  5. Ouch.
    In the UK, a guy wearing a thong would not expect to find his big toe in it.

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  6. That's amazing, the way you recreate it all in slo-mo... and what were the chances of you landing on a shard like that then?
    Can you still be a proper Australian and not wear flip-flops?(as I prefer to call them, 'thong' bringing about a puerile degree of mirth in any Briton).

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  7. I say Jandals, but who wants to wear them anyway.
    I winced in agony with you. I thought you were also going to pour molten marmalade upon your person. The toe was bad enough.

    You brought back memories of watching my grandmother pouring the marmalade or jam into the line of jars. She never had an accident, luckily.

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  8. ouch! sympathy pain, sympathy pain!

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  9. ohh that's terrible - no flip-flops!!

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  10. Oooh.. Ouch!

    Hmm.. I can't imagine u wearing thongs... Flip flops yes, but not thongs....

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  11. you just remineded me of my unigue story. when in college i was wallking to class wearing my mother's old fur coat and several layers of clothes, carrying books and my knitting ( so i wouldn't be bored to tears). I slipped and fell and hit my elbow rather hard. Then i noticed my knitting needles sticking in the fur coat and proceeded to pull them out; at which point i turned to my friend and said "I think they were in my arm!". She helped me get the coat off and pulled up my sleeve to take a look but told me "don't look". We went to the infirmary where i had my first stitches- one in each of the puncture holes left by the knitting needles.

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  12. So, no flip-flops - not all bad then.

    I went a fair way to snipping off a the end of a finger while dead-heading daisies a while ago - made them laugh in Casualty. Always good to bring a smile into someone's life.

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  13. hi there. found this link on ur response to my blog =)
    i read one comment and it did me wonder... u wrote about ur "scar" but didn't mention the conclusion of your marmalade :O) hihi...

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