Erk. My life has been overtaken by a job application form devised in Hades. Yesterday, while our American friends ate turkey our world bustled on, and there was no room at the inn for a new post. Here’s a spacer(I cringe to use the RP word twice in one week): I may or may not post a Macaulay special later, when I have spent the morning in school and lunch with a very nice academic in Reading.
My car and I had a short altercation this week. The consequences were dire.
I was flustered. I was late. I had arrived at work and was unpacking my bags in a Very Small Space. My car was wedged in like a whale in a winkle shell.
Sandwiched between the school fence and the back of my bus, I was conscious of curious children in the nearby playground, drifting over to investigate my plight more closely.
I raised the back hatch- a weighty monolith by anyone’s standards- and managed to lever out all the paperwork I needed.
And then I pulled the hatch down, with jolly-hockeysticks gusto, onto my skull.
For the rest of the day, I sported an egg-shaped bump on my head.
On Thursday, I woke up feeling really quite original. I think it’s called concussion. But I elected to ignore it because casualty is time-consuming, un family friendly and inconvenient.
By Friday, things were getting uncomfortable. But I continued with my policy of tactical ignorance.
This morning, I could ignore it no longer. One call to a doctor and I was dispatched with all speed to Casualty.
Three hours later I was home again, with a box of pills and a diagnosis of concussion.
It’s miraculous, this age, with everything they know about health. Four hundred years ago I would have had a colourful choice of healthcare, depending on how much money I had in my pocket.
With enough hard cash, I could summon the physician, who would have been attached to a great seat of learning, with a degree and a license.
He often wore some strange clothes, including a bird-like mask to protect him from diseases: and would be as likely to consult one’s astrological chart as he was to look at the symptoms in front of his nose.
But the middle classes would have headed straight for the apothecary.
He, too, had his own accreditation: he would have been a member of a guild, a craftsman, who knew everything there was to know about herbs, and would use them to help. This could be useful, but it was also open to some quackery.
And it was the apothecary who supplied poison when it was needed, as poor Romeo found out so fatally.
If I had needed any surgery, it was straight to the local barber, who would saw anything off for the price of a pint.I exaggerate, of course. I’m sure he asked much more than that.
Hospitals are funny places. Sitting there in casualty, I recalled many of the other times I walked through the doors of a hospital.
I never really knew our National Health Service until Maddie made her presence felt. When it was time for her to be born, I was living at the foot of Dartmoor, near Plymouth.
She wasn’t for coming out, and we spent a happy day, after I was given the drugs to hurry things up, in a nice maternity room, talking animatedly to a succession of really interesting midwives.
But still, nothing happened.
As the witching hour approached, staff became serious. It was time to bring baby out, whether baby liked it or not. An operation was in order.
On trooped a crack team of baby deliverers, all Navy surgeons and anaesthetists, every one equipped with rapier-sharp wit.
We brightened up. We were in humorous hands.
A delighted Phil was dressed in greens, and could have passed for one of the surgical team. This suited him very nicely.
The next hour was a string of one-liners and wisecracks which engrossed me absolutely, so that I laughed my way through my first serious op.
Anaesthetic has its uses.
They gave Phil one job. When we pull the baby out, they said, you’ll be the first to spot its sex.
You must shout, they told him, with jubilation: “It’s a boy!” or alternatively:”It’s a girl!”, depending on who emerges, bawling, into life.
Phil stood, primed and ready, as the surgeons worked their magic.
And as Maddie emerged, scarlet and furious at her change in circumstances, he shouted with all the pomp and theatre of a brand new father: “It’s a boy!”….
And the rest is history.
Image source here
Kate Shrewsday 
Ouch, hope your head soon heals, such an easy thing to do when hassled. Lovely story about the newborn.
Cheers, Nuvofelt. As it’s a repost the head is fit as a fiddle, thank you!…have a great weekend
LOL, I misread that part…..
So I see the poor man is still trying to live his mistake down….. was it the umbilicus that floored his judgement?!
It was indeed, Pseu 🙂 Not an uncommon mistake….
I’m feeling very endeared toward that man of yours. Whether it is that he is very human or very humourous, I don’t care. I like his style!
Let’s hope that generous bonk with kick the hell out of the migraines, Kate!
Thanks, Amy 🙂 Phil is both very human and very humorous. Life is never dull..
So sorry about your head… I did that once with the garage door (up and over) and actually knocked myself out (momentarily) – came to on the ground. It was agony. I didn’t admit to having concussion but the osteopath said I’d scrunched my spine from top to bottom and once he’d sorted that out, the headaches, neckache, shoulderache all went.
Take care of you.
Ooooh! Osteopaths might be a way to go, EB. As this was a repost it was almost a year ago; but the migraines have been much worse since. Might try our that tip, thanks!
Listen to them and REST and get better. We do not want your brains permanentluy scrambled (or at least no further) because we enjoy the output as they are.
Cars seem intent on braining me, regardless of whether they are big doors on a hatch back or a lady-like boot covering, but so far I have escaped without concussion (it took a small motor-scooter to achieve that)
One day, Sidey, I will hear the story of how you managed to get concussed by a little motor-scooter. We have had our own encounters with these outrageous little machines….
Now I could tell you a funny story ~ Once taking John to see the Dentist I did so foolishly on an empty stomach. Now I don’t normally have any issues with blood but was prone to fainting when I got hot and having an empty stomach was a silly thing to do. It got a liitle hot and stuffy in the dentist room and the tooth also did not want to come out. I could feel my temperature rising and so did what any lady would do in those circumstances and politely excused myself.
The next thing I knew I was coming to on the pavement with blood coming out of the back of my head !!!! I managed to stagger back to the receptionist and tell her that ”I think I may have passed out ” ( YOU THINK !!) The next thing I knew I was being put on a stretcher in the back of an Ambulance and was on my way back to the place of MY birth ~ The Royal Berks Hospital.
They do what they need to do and I am worrying about my husband all alone in the Dentist.
He eventually turns up and the first thing he says to me is ”Can I have the car park ticket please ?” It was in my purse and had come all the way to Reading with me !!! I exclaimed ” OH !!” and then he smiles and says ”it’s o.k they took pity on me and let me out ~ Hows your head ?” I replied ”Sore ”..
My night in shining armour then took me home and made a fuss of me and the next year was one of the worst of my life with a Concusion that lasted a year, trips to specialists and a brain scan to boot ~ They did find one I was pleased to hear. I was given the all clear and told it would pass in time. Every time I layed down I felt I was going to fall off the bed (This is vertigo I believe).
We have these bumps from time to time and we get up and brush ourselves down but it is nice to look back every now and again and think ”Wow, that was awful but I got over it ”
John is still terrified of the Dentists and his Mum and I still take turns in accompanying him ~ As we speak right now he is on the way to get his ”New Crown” fitted. My Husband may have left a Knight but will return a King !!!!!
Can’t make the pain go away but hopefully I have made you smile if only for the short while you were reading this post XXX
Oh , Trudie, what an amazing story 😀 That is just the sort of thing that I would do, getting rushed of by ambulance with car parking ticket still in pocket! So glad the concussion finaly passed- interesting to find it can last a year- and hope fervently that John’s latest crown was a painless, quick business and well over by now. Great story (even if it might have felt very chaotic at the time)!
Bwahahahaha – and he never lived it down! I know it was a RP but I hope your head was alright. Your stories have enough twists and turns to make a snake dizzy.
😀 It would account for a lot, Gabrielle….
One day, I want to see a dizzy snake. That land of yours….full of wonders….
Oh that boot hit me almost as hard as it hit you, Kate. Ow ow ow.
Did you bash Phil when you discovered there was something missing from your newborn son?
No: the navy crew put him right immediately. Phil shouted:”It’s a boy!” and everyone else chorused, like a panto audience;”No! It’s a girl!”
I reckon they ask every dad to do the same just for a chuckle….
If there is anything more likely to put you in a fluster it is filling in forms. I shall remember your great expression ‘devised in Hades’ next time we are manoeuvring our way around a form.
Mine is complete and submitted now. When one returns from the Underworld there is an irrepressible feeling of smugness…
Hahaha, poor Phil, hot and flustered, he couldn’t see through the sweat running into his eyes!
Now there’s an excuse that never occurred to him, Denise, or I feel sure he would have used it!
I love the differences in our shared English language, English and American. I had never heard the term “spacer” to refer to a repost and I thought you had done this two days ago. When Teresa and I were in Birmingham, England two years ago, we took a tour with a busload of Rotarians and had a lovely lady from Oxford as our guide. She noticed that a number of questions from the group related to word meanings so she took an opportunity to answer all our questions on word differences. It was fun and interesting and definitely helped us the rest of the trip.
Glad you had a chance to have Thanksgiving with Queen A and the Shadow Ninja….hope you made him cook for his dinner. 🙂
Hi Lou! Lovely of you to take a trip over here to read! I am afraid I am a guerilla vocabularist: many of the words I use exist i)not at all; or ii) peripherally, like a post the other day where I used the Scottish slang ‘dreek’. Spacer in the UK is used as a technical term – something which holds a space open, for a purpose. For me, that is just what this repost has done.
Our meeting is still imminent and we’ll be eating out, looking over the Thames 🙂 Simply can’t wait.
Oh, Kate, I think I should be keeping a log–saving all the wonderful turns of phrase you employ so that I might somehow, some way, some day quote you as I work one or another into a conversation: “wedged in like a whale in a winkle shell” “with jolly-hockeysticks gusto”–these are delightful! So, is the ultimate ending of this post. Some day Maddie will delight in re-telling the tale of the jubilant announcement of her arrival!
I suspect the job application form is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things born of Hades. Assuming success with that hurdle, then comes the interview phase, frequently conducted by someone who projects the appearance of an emissary from that realm. 🙂 Good luck with both!
Oh, Karen, you are so right. I think you have joined us since my last interview which I self-sabotaged. Still: this one will have stiff competition so it may not get as far as a Hadean interview. If it does, I shall accustom myself to brimstone beforehand 😀
Hope everything is all better. But, as a male I have to ask the great unanswered question about this post… what kind of car was it? See, knowing that would tell us so much more about the hatch, whether it was damaged in the incident, whether it was overloaded, if any paint may have come on and so for. I mean, seriously! 😉
Really, hope your head heals well. And you are not missing much not eating our dry turkey and going “black Friday” shopping.
Oh, Michael, of course: car type is an essential man-fact. It was a Citroen C8. The slab of metal on the back is monolithic. Other essential data: the hatch got off better than I did with zero paint damage, and I had just unloaded the overloading so it was empty. It was just a mean French car with a personal grudge against me.
I am deeply envious of your Thanksgiving. I feel a feast at the end of November would be the perfect party excuse and opportunity for a day off. Still, we have a general strike next Wednesday which I’m sure will fit the bill nicely. Hope your Thanksgiving was a lovely occasion!
I love the idea of Navy surgeons and anaesthetists with rapier-sharp wits. I know some of our doctors have such, but they don’t often display them when patients are about. Good luck with the form from Hades. I haven’t found one yet that wasn’t created there.
I did consider scalpel-sharp wits, Kathy, but it was a little too near the mark. Some of my more sensitive readers might swoon. Thanks for your good wishes: I have returned from the Underworld, and it feels good.
Bwahaha! Not the hitting your head part (OUCH!) . . . the missing the sex part (OUCH!).
Thanks for the smiles, Kate.
I cannot take credit today, Nancy 🙂 The smiles are all Phil’s…
Dear Kate,
Your ending today had me chuckling out loud! Thank you for such a wonderful laugh on this overcast day here in the heartland of the USA.
In 2000, a specialist diagnosed me with Meniere’s Disease. Since that time, I’ve explored the Internet looking for anything that might help. So I appreciated your journey today through the historical stepping-stones of medicine.
I do hope the concession ceases its ill-effects as today passes. Don’t be surprised to find that your mind makes leaps it doesn’t usually make. I say that because a friend of mine has has five concussions and each time she finds herself saying or doing something that surprises her.
Take notice!
Peace.
Thanks Dee 🙂 Meniere’s Disease – that’s balance and vertigo, isn’t it? I can imagine your research must have ranged far and wide: I do hope modern medicine has found a way to make it tolerable.
Notice duly taken 🙂
Oh dear, Kate! You must have hit that hatchback incredibly hard–or it you! Ouch! Even with a concussion you have such wit! Poor Phil…that’s a story to live down, isn’t it? And then later Felix came along and he had his son! You present a wonderful family…I also have an emergency C-section story, and although it was so long ago that perhaps I’ve forgotten, I don’t remember having a very entertaining crew at my side! You may be the one responsible for turning that moment into a party. You were probably telling stories! Debra