Shelf-Awareness and Shelf-Shabotage

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Laugh at yourself because you discover you contain the brains of an academically-challenged fruit fly, and you have the makings of blog post.

Truly, it is only for We of the Grand Blogosphere that incidents of personal confusion, clumsiness, and monumental stupidity lead to-- not appropriate shame and self-loathing-- but the phrase, "Crikey-Moses, I must blog about about one!"

The setting? Saturday afternoon.

I am in my dining room, evaluating the placement of a four-foot wide, three-foot tall shelf, designed to sit on a mantle or sideboard.

It isn't heavy, as much as large and unwieldy. And having determined that it won't work properly on my fireplace mantle, I set my sights on the only other wide surface in the room.

On top of a six-foot-tall cabinet.

Note, I do not care for heights.

So I get a small ladder. (So far so good!)

Then I butt the steps right up to the cabinet. (Nice and close!)

I jiggle it a few times to ensure its grippy stairs are locked properly in place. (Safety first, donchaknow!)

Then I grab the giant shelf and begin my ascent.

Step... step... step... Almost there!

Only... erm.... not so much.

I am out of steps. I barely peer over the top of the cabinet. And as I try to lift this shelfish monstrosity up and onto its top, I realize I failed to take into account one more important thing.

Lifting requires bent arms to unbend themselves. The shelf is more than a foot wide.

I am about a foot from the cabinet. My arms are pinned.

Physics says 'no.'

I am, in fact, so close to this cabinet--- my nose taking in its lemony-fresh furniture polish scent-- that I am ever-so-slightly off-balance now. Meaning, I could try to take a step backward, off the stair I'm on, but I can't see where the step below it is, and the angle is off.

And I can't lift the shelf up because there's no room to unbend my arms, because I am physically in my own way with things like boobs and noses and chins, all of which I feel I'll need for later.

I stand there blinking, wondering exactly how I got into this position and whether I would, quite possibly, be spending the remainder of my life here.

I could get a different hand-hold on the shelf, but there's nowhere to rest it.

I try balancing it with one hand, but the shelf is too wide, and it keeps slipping.

I try jogging my hands into place, inch-by-inch, but it is wood and I am scraping off skin which-- like chins, noses and whatnot-- I think I'll need for later.

I decide, in my infinite brilliance, that I might be able to temporarily wedge the shelf between my stomach and the cabinet. In a rudimentary vise grip. You know: just so I can move my hands.

So here I am, hoping Mighty Iron Stomach (which is more like Mighty Jell-O Stomach), will support all the weight of a four-foot-by-three-foot shelf.

I apply stomach to shelf.

I let go with one hand.

The cabinet rattles and sways. I rattle and sway. The china inside the cabinet contemplates life as a mosaic.

In a moment, one side of the shelf slips. My stomach learns that splinters are like acupuncture but less therapeutic.

I catch the shelf and stop.

I stand holding the shelf for a long, long time, thinking about life and how it has come to this, me being trapped in mid-air in my dining room with only woodgrain for a view.

And that, my friends, is when I begin to scream for help.

"Heeeellp! Oh, heeeeeeelllp!"

My housemate soon heard my dire pleas for assistance and came rushing to my aid. It is not terribly easy to explain how I got into this predicament, I discover. But she's been my friend for years and recalls me hydroplaning without a car. And the time I Wile E. Coyoted off a stepladder while hanging curtains. Oh, and the time I crippled myself in Cape May.

She has seen the wonders of my overly-ambitious yet rubbish brain. Yet still hangs out with me.

That's friendship.

Only, folks, she's in the process of purchasing her own house. Meaning soon, yours truly will be left solely to her own devices with no one to call for aid.

So if there's a week I suddenly don't post? Do me a favor. Please have the cops stop by my house and check on me.

My hands may not be free to make the 911 call myself.

-------------------------------------------
Humorbloggers
Humor-blogs

Aerobics for the Hopelessly Uncoordinated

It's biased, I tell you. Biased! Aerobic workouts are great for the heart, good for burning calories and help get that ol' blood pumping. But what they are not good for are those millions of people in the world like me who are Coordination Impaired.

Instructors like Denise Austin and Kathy Smith make a 40-minute work-out look like a well-rehearsed stage production of A Chorus Line. Me, I turn it into the Tasmanian Devil hunting Wabbit. Arms and legs flail willy-nilly. Elbows jar at rakish angles. Feet kick in random convulsions. Forest creatures flee in my wake.

And this is only in my basement at home. Just imagine the kind of damage I could do if I actually subjected an aerobics class to me. They'd be Grapevining left, and I'd be off-stage right, trying to figure out how I spun myself into the coat closet.

So that's why I think we need Aerobics for the Hopelessly Uncoordinated. Something tailored specifically to the full-body-heave aerobics crowd. And while I'm not a licensed fitness trainer and would, obviously, need to work with one for any formalized instruction, I thought you all might enjoy seeing the sort of program I'm thinking about:


Warm up-- Get into your exercise clothes.
A great way to burn calories before the official exercising ever even begins is to try to actually get into some spandex exercise clothes.

First, put on the sports bra. Yes-- I'm well-aware a good 60% of Cabbages readers are men. But you don't think this excludes you, do you? Bah! No! You want to be a part of this class, you have to put some effort into it just like the rest of us. No whining!

I'll even give you some instructions on how it works. Think about it like taking a latex glove with all the fingers cut off...

Then try to stretch it over the head and shoulders of... oh... the Statue of Liberty.

Now that you're halfway through getting your sports bra over your head, note how you can't see, and you can't seem to find the right arm holes because somehow there are now 137 of them... This is a good time to do a few stretching moves.

It is also the ideal time to contemplate your greater place in the cosmos and how you will be spending the rest of your days on this planet trapped in the dark, half naked, with spandex on your head...

How your family or friends will find your lifeless corpse on the floor of the workout area, dried up and tangled in something black and clingy, and they won't be able to scrub that image from their minds for the eulogy...

Ah! There! That gave you the motivation to wrench the rest of the way into the sports bra, didn't it?

What, your muscles are strained from pulling this silicone inner tube over your head? And you say you can't breathe?

Perfect! Congratulations! Now do the same thing with your spandex shorts and you be well on your way to part two of the Aerobics for the Hopelessly Uncoordinated-- the Workout.


The Workout-- Freestyle Flailing.
Where so many aerobics workouts go wrong is by assuming you need to do all these different, specific moves to work various muscle groups. But anyone who is uncoordinated knows: simply by trying to follow the instructor, We the Few, the Proud, the Dangerously Clumsy are working more muscles at a time than all those graceful people who actually know where their feet and arms should go.

In trying to keep up... in trying to figure out why we'd ever want to put this foot behind that foot and do a shuffle-hop-step-clap-step-clap-step... we have managed to do two extra squats, wrapped our foot behind our left ear, elbowed our retina, and dislodged our colon.

And that's all in the first five minutes of the program! Just think of the kind of things we can get done if we can maintain that pace for the full 40.

And that's why I've developed Freestyle Flailing. See, when the instructions get too confusing, and you already have two black eyes and a bruised glutius maximus, you can choose to substitute the official move for any of these fun and exciting alternate moves which also will look ridiculous:

• Modified Pee-Wee Herman Dance
• Ride Thumbing with Feeling
• Man Trapped in Box Mime Routine
• Jumping Jacks
• Mock-er-ena
• The Bull-dance
• Baby-circles
• The Wave (not as visually stunning with just one person, but good for the thighs)
  
• Stanley Cup Playoff High-Fiving
• The Hokey Pokey
  
• The Hand Jive
• Develop-Your-Own
  

With Freestyle Flailing, you have a much greater choice in just how you wrench your back. And greater choice means less frustration and more days of working out once you get out of traction!

Now that we've done some flailing Our Way, let's move on to the last step in the program-- the Cool Down.


The Cool Down: Shouting Out Dried Blood Stains.
Ahhh... the relaxing cool down. This is the part of the program where we can take the time to wipe up those pools of blood from our head injuries, before they leave a permanent stain on the floor and walls. Take your time... now stretch for that blood spatter... hold it! There. Doesn't that feel good? Now start scrubbing the blood, sweat and tears from that sports bra.

Next-- pack ice on that wrenched knee... Gauze it... tape it... keep taping it. Ah! Yes, note how it now looks like a cancerous knot on a 100-year-old elm tree and you can't walk without the other knee bumping into it? Perfect!

Sure, it'll make getting those spandex shorts off difficult... but that's the final part of our stretching exercises.

I hope you've enjoyed these Aerobics for the Hopelessly Uncoordinated. We at Of Cabbages and Kings believe in promoting better health.

Now... can someone help me out of this spandex? Call the Emergency Rescue, we might need the Jaws of Life.

-------------------------------
Humorbloggers
Humor-blogs

The Day I Hydroplaned Without a Car

Cats and dogs... The rain was coming down like cats, dogs and guinea pigs for good measure. (Nothing can output liquid like a guinea pig with an ambition.)

It was spring, in college, and I was on my way to an evening screenwriting class with a friend we'll call "Annie."

We leapt through the poodles and Persians, Annie and I-- umbrella-less and carefree. Proving once more that higher education and good sense don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. Or even live in the same neighborhood.

In fact, most of the time, good sense lived a few miles away and had to take the bus to catch up.

And it didn't have exact change.

The dorm lights this night reflected gold on the slick sidewalks of the campus. And in spite of Pittsburgh's reputation as one of the U.S.'s most rainy cities, Annie and I were still somehow surprised by the Noah-like flood conditions. (The cats and dogs were now coming down in twos.)

We were drenched in an instant.

Hair streaming in our faces, jackets plastered to our arms, the light at the corner was about to go green. And that's when I figured, if I gave it some effort, I could make it.

In my black flat shoes, I put on a burst of speed, leaving Annie soaked and blinking behind me. Yes, I sprinted, laughing as the rain slapped me in the face, and I made one great enthusiastic leap over the flowing gutters onto the sidewalk and...

That's when the world went sideways.

Physics experts would undoubtedly speak of things like speed and weight and slope and energy and friction.

I can only speak about the great whooshing sound as my feet sought traction-- and found none-- sending a shoe up and left, my bag off and right, and toes liberated from their confines and skyward.

That's when I began to make some serious distance. Because as the rain coursed off the curb and into the street, I shot up the incline in the entirely opposite direction, along with a roaring a gush of water. Warm and frothing in my wake, I body-surfed clear to the steps of Warner Hall in my own impromptu Slip-n-Slide.

By this time, the light had changed and from Annie's vantage point on the other side of the street, I was roadkill. Which would probably bum my parents out a little when she told them.

Later, she would recount tales of the sight of me, running, gliding, and accessories flying like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.

But when she got to me, I was apparently still laughing. It had been like the best water-flue ride our amusement parks had to offer. I didn't even mind giving the blooper reel moment to all the cars driving by.

Once you've publicly hydroplaned, one does not speak of pride.

I do remember Annie's face peering down on me, pale, drawn, her glasses speckled with rain. "Are you all right?" she asked, breathlessly.

"That was fun!" I told her, in fits of hysterics.

Annie wasn't finding the fun herself this moment. But then she'd just made memorial service plans for me a moment or so earlier. So it was hard to switch gears.

Well, Annie grabbed my bag, and I peeled myself off the sidewalk and tracked down my shoe. The current had swept it into the gutter and was making good time toward the drain.

That's when I noticed I'd taken a large chunk out of the side of my foot.

Annie and I went to class, anyway, because, well-- I grew up with a father who felt any injury or illness could be cured by "doing a few squat thrusts." Pulled your back out? Do some squat thrusts. Have pneumonia? Do some squat thrusts.

I have no barometer for personal mercy.

And so we sat there in class and dripped, and I bled, and the professor-- having not seen anything so grotesque since we'd watched the torture scene in Marathon Man only the class before-- sent one of my classmates for some Band-Aids for me.

Funny, but I still recall the moment fondly. My foot hurt for weeks and seeped, and there was a big knob on the side of it for several years.

But the sound of the roaring water, the rush, the exhilaration...There's just nothing like the little surprises that step in, pants you, tickle your sides, and remind you you're alive.

----------------------------------------
Humorbloggers
Humor-blogs