Hi everyone, its Wednesday afternoon, and its time to invoke the SOP’s & for any newbies reading this for the first time, I’ll explain ‘em to you. Those who want a drink, glasses in the cupboard, coffee mugs next to ‘em, kettle on the bench, white wine & the milk are in the fridge, red in the pantry, bourbon in the cupboard, ice in the freezer.
While you’re up, some one grab Uncle Furry a big glass, chuck in ½ a dozen ice cubes, fill it up with bourbon. Pull up a bit of floor & relax for another installment of the Furry Chronicles. Those who smoke, outside & well away from me.
Today for some reason I’ve got a huge “Jones” on for a smoke, even though what happened recently is still very fresh in my mind, today I feel like I really could go one.
Relax all; the stats are enough to keep the urge in check though. Lets see if I got this right, 25% of the people who have had this sort of heart attack have a second (which is normally fatal) with in the next 5 years. Those who return to smoking, 50% will have another heart attack & of them, 50% will be fatal. So yeah, the urge is kept at bay.
Anywho, today’s story is why Furry’s don’t knit, sew or do that other “C” word, (crocheting). It dates back to when I was younger, (Year 9), back when it was a High School, not a College as they are called today). And the school I went to is today, still a shithole in the middle of a shitheap suburb. It’s nice to know that some things will never EVER change.
Now, it was decided that boys needed to learn “new” skills. Things like typing were offered to the lads, (please note I took up typing, it was a great way of chatting up girls with little or no “competition”). And may I say, to this day I’m not an exceptionally quick typer, but it was a “target rich” environment, that’s for sure.
Other skills that were foolishly made “compulsory” were things like wood & metal work for the girls, home economics (cooking), needle craft (sewing, knitting & crocheting) for the boys.
Well, “Blind Freddie” could have seen this had disaster written all over it. There was the normal cuts from sheet metal, that was a given, and the occasional chisel wound, that was going to happen regardless. It was cooking where we young lads excelled.
I think the very first sign that there was a flaw in this wonderful idea was the knife fight in class between two young rivals. Who knew that celery was such an important commodity? I suppose it is when you’re making vegetable soup.
The second sign that unfortunately went under the radar was one of the boys was carrying a huge pot full of (thankfully cold) vegetable soup, slipped on something on the floor & went “arse over head”.
Now we have a couple of kids, completely covered in, (or wearing, a very stylish, off the shoulder) soup. Well, we were all in teams of three, so an argument is raging between teammates as to “who the fuckwit was who” spilled whatever that caused this disaster to occur.
Well, one of the team cracks the shits, slams the griller closed on the oven/stove combination. Normally all good, but did I mention we were making cheese on toast to accompany our soup?
Well, a tea towel is thrown in disgust on top of the stove, also during a very “firey” debate. At about this point, the teacher has now disbanded the three-man team. About 5 minutes later, no sooner has someone said, “Do you smell something burning?”
When all of a sudden we have a gas stove fully engulfed in flames. The teacher fainted & it was left to about 8 kids to carry her out, (she was a good teacher, this is obvious, if she’d been crap, we would’ve left her behind). Some one raised the alarm & soon there were about 10 fire engines all for us.
Yep, there was an investigation & it all seemed to be a case of shit happens. Well home economics for the whole school was put on hold until the damage to the classroom could be repaired. (My mates & I were yet to take out the record for the most amount of damage done in the shortest amount of time).
So, now all our attention was focused squarely on our newest love, Needlework. Yeah you’re right, I’m bull shitting. Needlework was nowhere near a much fun as pottery.
Why was pottery fun? We would deliberately make air pockets in our pottery so as they would explode in the kiln. Throw lumps of clay at each other’s head, or put the clay off centre on the wheel, dial it up to full bore & see if you could “nail your mate in the nuts” as he was walking past. The last one really was Russian roulette.
Sometimes the clay found its desired target, others it got you.
Anyway, back to needle work, in the first couple of days we hand stitched bits of cloth together. There were the normal injuries, and we discovered if you got an injury, you were sent to the sick bay for a band-aid. This was great, it gave you a chance to nick off & grab a mid class smoke, and that my friend, made you uber cool.
Crocheting was quite dangerous. No really it was. No I agree, the “normal way” is quite safe, but our method, left a little to be desired. You know the hook thingy, well we’d sharpen them up on the concrete, and during class, fire them from rubber bands into the roof. The person who got it to stick in the roof, the highest, was the winner.
The problem is, they ricochet, like a bastard, off just about anything. As such, they quite often had a bit of a mind of their own.
Anyway, this particular day we graduated to sewing machines. I was a bit pissy because I wanted to piss off for a mid class smoke & that wasn’t going to happen now.
Before it was easy to accidentally, (on purpose), prick you finger on a needle, but now, for fuck sake, these things meant business. So I argued with my mate to go first so I could “nick out” of class when I’d finished.
Well he was also a bit pissy with me because he wanted to do similar. I was still arguing with him, looking backwards over my shoulder, when all of a sudden his face dropped. I looked around & I’d inadvertently sewn ½ way down my pointer finger to the webbing at the base of my thumb on my right hand.
Now I was really fucked, he was laughing, (read pissing himself laughing), and my right hand was pinched under the foot thing near the needle, the needle was down through the skin & the scissors were about a foot away, also on my right hand side.
So, I manually wound the needle up, released the foot thing, got the scissors & cut the thread. Wandering up to the teacher I’ve said, “Um excuse me miss, we have a bit of an issue”.
“Oh, what is it now” she snapped back before she’s actually turned around. There was me with my hand outstretched & a bit of fabric looking like it was sitting happily on my palm. “Well what is it?” she snapped again, this time I turned my hand over, gave it a shake or two & looked back at her.
It was sensational! Her eyes rolled back, her knees came together & she went down like a bag of spuds, (potatoes). Well, we dragged her to the sick bay as well. It was all-good. I got the fabric removed, didn’t need stitched, already had ‘em, HA HA HA HA. The teacher, she did however. In her haste to meet Mr Floor she hit her head on the desk & needed about 15 just above her eye.
Well there was one more incident that saw boys being sent back to metal & woodwork & girls returning to home economics & needlework. Unfortunately it really wasn’t funny at all. A young lass was using a lathe to buff, (polish) a piece of metal, (as done a thousand times before & since).
It got progressively hotter & she decided to hold it with her metal work apron. One of the ties on the apron wrapped around the spindle of the lathe, the other was around her thumb and WHOOMP, no more skin left on her thumb. It was re-attached but was never quiet the same.
Please don’t think I’m saying boys can do this & girls can't do that or that there are clear lines of demarcation. There isn’t. What the story is about is that it was just a series of unfortunate events, most could have been avoided if there was better supervision, and others if I’d been a little more focused.
Anyway, that’s it for today. Have a great weekend
Heaps of love & cuddles
1 comment:
everyone should knit furry :0 musi
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