I am a danger to.... myself!

2010, a new year, a new me! Well not really a whole new me, merely a revised version of the old one, but it’s all good. 

2009 was a rather calamitous year for me and no doubt 2010 will be a year of continued “freak accidents”. A phrase originally coined by my father typically to be utilised after breaking another of my mother’s crystal glasses, falling off a ladder or getting drunk and tripping over the two dwarf ferns in the middle of the lawn (shortly after this episode, he dug them out).

Like my father it would seem I was born under the star of chaos with calamity rising in my lower chakra. Most recently, during the last week of the decade, home alone, I was beset by a “freak accident”. In this particular quandary I was trapped in the shower whilst the shower screen decided to fix itself in the closed position. What do you do? Call for help? I don’t think Pilar, the concierge would be too happy to fish my naked ass out of the shower. No, instead I dismantled the whole thing and climbed to safety. I am after all a carpenter’s daughter, even if I seem to have inherited the “freak accident” gene from him.

Living alone is not a concept alien to me having lived alone in the UK for over 4 years. That’s four years of solitary dire straits. I am a pescatarian, and one evening I was resplendent in my city centre apartment taking my fill of a fishy feast, minding my own business when a big ol’ salmon bone stuck in my throat. What to do?! Don’t panic!!! 

Ordinarily you would hit the person on the back or perhaps attempt the Heimlich maneuver, wait, there’s only me here! Whilst wheezing and rasping and going through the options in my mind, it occurred to me that every room has four walls! With that, I promptly flung myself against the wall, didn’t work the first time, tried it again nearly breaking my collar bone in the process, but hey presto! The bone was dislodged.

I called my mother (Joy) to regale her with the tale of my latest incident. “Oh dear” was all she said, in the low monotonous tone of a mother who is tired of hearing of yet another of her first born’s near death experiences.

On my upcoming trip, I’ll be putting myself in the way of all kinds of foreign danger, lets see if I manage to make it there and back in one piece!