#232-ANOTHER FINE MESS!

Last summer I caused myself a bit of a dilemma (what's new).  I have a bad habit of climbing up onto whatever is close to reach things above my normal grasp.  This, in the past, has caused the demise of various cans, tables,  and, yes, boxes.  But none can compare with what happened when I climbed up onto a plastic outdoor chair.  

Picture this with a gaping, jagged
hole in the center.

You know the kind I am talking about.  You see them at every Target, K-Mart or Walmart each spring.  They are the colorful ones that grace almost every other back yard patio in the world.


Anyway, up onto the chair I went, to try and fix the garage door which was refusing to open (again for the 100th time).  I stepped up onto that plastic perch (which had apparently been in the sun waaaay to long to hold even a person half my weight).  No sooner than I had stepped up, my leg broke through the center.  The problem was not that I fell but... the chair seat immediately broke into a chard pattern and was holding my leg hostage.  In order to get my leg out I was going to have to pull it out against the chards.  "Oh, mannnnn, this was going to hurt," I said  (deja-vous, it seems as though I have said this to myself before).  


Add to this that I was in the garage and had no place to sit down in order to ponder the best plan of attack.  The garage door wouldn't budge and the only possible path to another chair was up two steps and through a spring-loaded storm door.  I gingerly walked over to the first barrier to gaining entrance to the house only to be stabbed in 3 places by the pointy chards.  


Obviously the problem occurred when I tried to get through the spring loaded storm door.  Acting much like an alligator the darned thing kept glomming onto the chair.  I couldn't seem to put the trapped leg up first or hop up the steps on my right leg.  The danged door opened up to the left.  I couldn't reach far enough to hold it open in order to avoid the chair which had latched onto me like a pirana (yes, I know the door is an alligator and the chair is a pirana...apparently my garage is a swamp of some sort).


Next, I looked around for some tools to break (or cut) the chair off of my leg.  Now, if your garage looks like mine, then you know that there is no clear path to anything of importance.  So, I staggered around with this chair maintaining a shark like grasp on my leg (may as well keep the analogies in the realm of deadly water animals).  

Picture this upside down.

I found a small crate on which to sit and attacked the 'sharkesque' chair with a small saw.  Makes sense...use teeth to attack teeth...NOT!    When I pushed down on the saw it worked OK. But, when I pulled up the monstrous teeth bit into my leg.  


Struggling to my feet I went in search of a more deadly weapon (at that point if I could have found a gun I would have gladly put the chair to death).


The only thing I could find was a rusty pair of pruning shears.  So, I plopped myself down on the crate again and began to try and cut the plastic.  Well, that danged stuff was brittle enough to shatter when I stepped on it but, held together when I tried to cut it.


I sat there thinking while sweat dripped of me as if I were actually in a stinking swamp.  As I was looking around for an idea I spotted a coil of clothes line rope.  BINGO!  Gingerly, I wrapped a loop around each shard (one at a time) and pulled the loop up over the arm and tied it off.   


It worked great.  Well, almost...The last chard broke and I fell backwards onto the plastic crate (that had, also, apparently been in the sun way too long).  The chair flew off my leg, and my butt was suddenly stuck in the broken crate.  I said, "Well, sh!!, this is another fine mess you have gotten yourself into."   (I think I must be somehow related to Laurel and Hardy).


I sat there laughing at myself and eventually turned over to the side and got my crate covered rump up off the floor.  With a little tug and wiggle the crate dropped to the floor.  


That day I went to Walmart to buy a step-stool.  On, occasion, I do learn from my mistakes... ... ... 


(And YES, I am in my "Blue Boy" period).  It seemed like the thing to do when the all the art turned out to be blue.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:


#233 Double Debacle 
#234 The War of the Roses
#235 Deer Me
#236 True Love

kt 3/18/12