A Christmas Carol

With Christmas all but a few weeks away I thought I’d give last years story an airing.

My right foot

My daughter Sarah bought me several presents this year; she’s a wonderful thoughtful girl who grows to look more like her mother with each passing year. One of her presents this Christmas was a Chinese ‘lookalikey’ ‘Leatherman’, do you know what that is?

For the uninitiated it’s a multipurpose tool (MPT) that folds away into a two parallel shaped sectional tubes which are compact enough to be slipped into a trouser pocket with all the other paraphernalia that we boys/men carry. After breaking a few finger nails it can be opened out to reveal: a pair of pliers, an assortment of knives, files, screw drivers, bottle opener, etc. a truly useful gadget that every man should have. It’s the type of tool that could help you out of any number of troublesome situations, whether on a sinking ship or as a survivor on a desert island it would serve you well.
If Robinson Crusoe had had one of these he wouldn’t have had to share his island with the likes of ‘Friday’ and consequently spend so much time watching his back during those long dark evenings wondering whether he was going to be on the menu the following day.

During one of those quiet grey days between Christmas and New Years day I settled down to watch a film on the TV. Jan had gone out Sale shopping and sarah was at work. I perched on the edge of the sofa gently fondling my ‘MPT’ trying to workout how to open it. On opening the largest blade I was very impressed by its sharpness and carefully crafted point, the Chinese have come a long way recently and are not too far behind the quality of Indian made tools you can buy at many street market throughout the land. I’m sure this improvement in quality has been since ‘Eric our Rag and Bone man’ has started to send his ‘tat’ their way. Whilst I mused over this miracle of recycling I drifted into a daydream. It was beyond my comprehension how the back garden rubbish from No. 32 could be transported around the world to the Iron Foundries of Shanghai and fashioned into such a thing of beauty. My generation were no strangers to recycling, we did it years ago the only difference now is that the magic has gone. When we recycled we took cloths to the Bring and Buy or Church Jumble Sale and would return with knitting patterns and last years annuals or sometimes quarter of Co-op tea a tin of Peaches and a home made cake. During the summer holidays when I used to hear the cry “any old iron, any old iron” I would scamper down the ‘cut’ and struggle back to the road side ready for the Ragman’s cart which was pulled by a ‘hundred year old horse’ who’s ribs stuck out like school railings. David Proctor once told me that it’s leather nosebag that was the size of a GPO mail sack was full of crisps so that must have been true. My contribution of a Mobo bouncing horse with broken springs would be thrown on top of discarded bedsteads and bicycles and often old-fashioned mangles. For this exchange I would run back home with three balloons and a goldfish in a jam jar which would live for about week if you didn’t overfeed it with too many ant’s eggs; the fish that were won as prizes from the Fair lasted just as long. Mom said that they were a special short-lived species; now that’s what I call recycling Magic.

As that final excited memory faded I clumsily let the MPT slip. The blade dropped to the floor briefly breaking its fall with the point just catching my inside right ankle before resting on the rug. The contact was glancing and in no way painful. I picked it up and tried to close it safely (no mean task) noticing that the tip was smeared with a trace of blood. I looked down at my ankle and saw a darkening circle start to appear on my Lara Croft Christmas socks, the circle grew alarmingly quickly and soon covered my ankle moving downward towards the rug. Not wanting to be the cause for any lasting stain which could be mentioned over and over again I realised that a visit to the first aid cupboard was needed and made my way to the kitchen managing to hobble on tiptoe before reaching the sanctuary of the lino tiled area before I placed my foot flat. My sock was now totally saturated which changing Lara’s khaki attire into a crimson hue; I slipped the sock off and let it fall to the floor making a plopping sound. The blood was now spurting like a hemophiliac’s, strangely in rhythm to that of my rapidly beating heart. The red liquid soon covered three tiles in each direction and showed no sign of stopping. I managed to keep my dry left foot out of contact with this ever-increasing circle by adopting the pose of ballet dancer. Stretching further and further until my head was below the work surface I was able to pirouette around my right heel, which now acted as a fulcrum, and search through several kitchen drawers looking for the tube of Super glue, which I was sure, would help stem the flow. Unable to find the glue and as resourceful as ever, I settled on the only other alternative which was at hand, a can of ‘Scholl’s foot powder’. Pulling myself up with the aid of the work surface and an outstretched leg ‘a la Flamingo’, I was able to keep the dripping confined to the centre of the floor and clear of the edges, which I knew would be a bugger to clean from the silicone sealer. With one deft movement I sprang onto the work surface like a cat and managed to position my gushing foot over the left hand side of the sink unit. The blood continued to flow colouring the assortment of washing up that Sarah had considerately left to soak. Unfortunately my athletic agility is but a distant memory and I was unable to reach the plug. The washing up was soon coated in this substance and took on the appearance of Borscht Soup, which may have been influenced by my Polish ancestry. When I pulled back the leg of my trouser there was hardly a mark on the ankle, a small slit no bigger than 1/2” was the extent of the puncture, but it was directly over a vein. The action of bending the leg to view the calamity constricting the material around my knee and inadvertently but most fortunately affected a tourniquet that slowed the flow sufficiently for me to swill it under the tap before a liberal dusting of athlete’s foot powder to the wound. With a sigh of relief the bleeding stopped. I surveyed the disaster area from my vantage point between the microwave and sink; it resembled the carnage of a Fred West’s Basement. The blood in the centre of the floor had stopped its slither towards the kitchen units and had started to congeal around the edge. I gathered my thoughts and formulated a plan of action as only a man can. Now that it had stopped bleeding my next course of action would be to clean up the mess before Sarah and more importantly Jan came home, otherwise there was a possibility that they wouldn’t allow me to stay in again by myself. Whilst this had taken place Tyke (the dog) had followed me into the kitchen and had witnessed the whole episode with a canine concern and a certain amount of excitement, especially when I had accidentally opened the cupboard where his biscuits were kept when looking for the glue. After he had gingerly sampled the blood he left me to my demise and retreated to his sentry post by the front door, well away from any apportioned blame that could have been directed towards him if the worse were to happen and I expired.
I lowered myself to the floor and found that the red liquid acted as a fine lubricant, it enabled me to slide to the far extremities of the lino and clean the edges quite well. I moved in a clockwise direction keeping my right foot in the centre using up most of the tea towels from the bottom drawer. This strenuous activity plus the refilling by gravity of the depleted withered leg started the pulsating flow again. I was unaware of this further leakage until I had completed the third revolution and realized that there seemed to be the same amount of blood to clean up as before. With its reduced surface tension the fresh blood spread much more quickly over the smeared surface than it had before. By now all the towels had been used up and I was feeling curiously a little fatigued after my Whirring Dervishes routine. I managed to regain my previous elevated position, this time half sitting half lying on the work surface with my foot back over the sink. I now felt very tired and the desire for a ‘nap’ but fought back the urge mainly because I couldn’t get comfortable. (If the inflicted wound had been to the left foot I could have stretched out better on the right hand side of the sink with room to spare (sod’s law decrees I have bad luck, eh?) as I was beginning to drift into the welcome comforts of slumber/coma; Tyke started to howl like a karaoke style of ‘Frank Highfield’ which heralded Sarah’s return.
Jennie has always had a tendency to pass out at the sight of blood so this revived me enough to sit upright and extend my hand towards the door in an assertive fashion in the attempt to stop her in her tracks before she saw the ‘Damien Hurst type Mural’ on the floor. My cheery disposition and hysterical laughter drew her attention from the mess sufficiently long enough for her to slump against the doorjamb. In all events Sarah saw the funny side of my predicament and quickly fetched some finger plasters. We applied these as a joint father and daughter operation i.e. me telling her how to do it and her doing it her way. The cross pattern soon closing up the external wound and more importantly repositioned the main artery close enough for the flow to take its more usual route back to the heart and enabling me fire on all cylinders. This quickly brought back some colour to my cheeks that were now in direct contrast to Sarah’s now pallid complexioned. Tyke restarted his cacophony of howling with his rendition of ‘I’ll remember you’ at the scratch scared front door this warning signal meant that Jan’s car had pulled onto the drive.
Enter Jan stage left.
She weighed up the situation and with a shrug of her shoulders proceeded to take the matter in hand as only a woman can. She filled a bucket with warm water and chose several household cleaners from beneath the sink suitable for the task in hand and in a thrice, like ‘Wonder Woman’ sprang into action. She quickly mopped the floor buffing it to a beautiful shine as she went. The sodden towels were bundled into the under sink bin and fresh clean ones were placed on their hooks. She startled me when she made a lunge between my legs and extricated the drain plug from the sink before refilling and with a squirt of fairy liquid completing the washing up. I’m sure she was concerned about the events which had lead to the situation but had the good sense not pry into the circumstances other than to mention that the towels I had used were mementoes of her past holidays and that I should have used Tyke’s blanket which could have been more easily replaced when she next visited the Oxfam shop.
Sarah helped me down from the work surface, made me a cup of coffee to replenish my lost fluids while Jan washed my sticky sock and placed it on the radiator behind the sofa which I had now settled into. The sock would be within easy reach when I fully regained consciousness; how thoughtfully and well looked after I am. I’m so grateful for care and attention I get at home but sometimes wonder where my MPT went.
Both Sarah and Jan assure me that they have looked for it maybe it’s gone back to be recycled.

I hope it reappears one day in the form of a gun.

Now that would be an exciting story.