Can't Sleep, Chairs Will Eat Me
In what is either a peculiar coincidence or someone having a deranged sense of humour, today I was attacked by a patio chair as I tried to sit out in the backyard and read a book on Jack the Ripper. The weather was quite beautiful--warm, sunny blue skies--and I figured why not read Patricia Cornwall's book "
Jack the Ripper: Case Closed" outside, where I could also let the 4 Shih-tzu puppies run around under my watchful eye.
Being someone who needs to be able to stretch out their legs when they read, I stacked 2 patio chairs with the intent of sitting on one and using the other as a footrest. I carried these into the middle of the yard, and there came the horror. Bear in mind, these are moulded, plastic chairs with armrests that have not had all their scratchy edges smoothed off. I rather foolishly carried the chairs by gripping either side of the seat, instead of gripping the armrests.
I set the stack down and, still gripping the seat of the upper one, tried to shake them apart. This proved troublesome, as the patio chairs had decided they'd rather be siamese twins and blatantly refused to bend to my will. I therefore lifted them higher off the ground and gave a mighty shake. The chairs separated, and gravity yanked the lower patio chair downwards.
This proved troublesome, since my hands were gripping the seat of the top chair, and the armrests of the lower chair came dropping down and tore across them during the descent. Fortunately, I got off with having lost only a few patches of skin off the back of each hand. Unfortunately, every single nerve ending I had on those patches of skin are screaming vile obscenities and letting me experience very unpleasant, painful sensations.
So currently I nurse two somewhat scarred hands, and a bruised ego at thinking how in a war between a patio chair and myself, the patio chair came out the notable winner. And very little reading was accomplished in the end. It's hard to turn the pages without getting blood and some other sorts of leaky fluids dripping onto them.
Today's Lesson: some species of patio chairs may in fact be carnivorous.
posted by Phillip at 2:46 PM
