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.

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Jenn Vs. the Giant Hogweed

Not long ago, the backyard was a peaceful English garden filled with roses, hydrangeas and a restrained modicum of plaster fat winged babies...

Then I blinked and somehow it turned into The Lost World.

I'm not precisely sure how it happened, but boy, it happened BIG. Vegetation had sprung up with stalks the diameter of soup cans. Vines like firehoses battled innocent rhododendrons. And Tarzan went swinging by with a yodel and a cheery wave.

"Yeah, hey, how's it hangin', jungle dude?"

So Sunday, I put on my pith helmet, loaded the boar rifle, grabbed a scythe and ventured out into the Back Four. It was better to have-at this before the neighbors started complaining. I mean, Tarzan's yells alone were likely keeping them up at night...

That man really projects.

Plants that looked like giant mutant strawberries-- only without, you know, the benefit of fruit-- had formed a united front in one area daring me to take them on.

In another area, towering prickly stalks had managed to nestle their way in between my true plants, in a sly effort at self-preservation. Once settled, they'd apparently spent time bullying the yard cherubs, punting one fat plaster God of Love to the side in a firm statement on lawn art.

To some it may have been fair dealings. To me, well, this meant war.

Down came the killer vines! Out went the mutant strawberries! "Timmmmmmm-berrrrr!!!" went the Giant Hogweed.

"Save the Rainforest" activists had lined up to protest, but after I showed them a map and assured them that we were actually in Western Pennsylvania and not along a tributary of the Amazon, they hung their heads in disappointment and shuffled along home.

After an hour or so, Tarzan was standing alongside me, blinking confusedly.

"Me just wondering... where vines go?" he queried.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to relcocate, pal," I told him. "You, the chimps and that lion of yours. You made a wrong turn somewhere."

The king of the jungle shook his head sadly. "Me totally bummed."

"Yeah, sorry," I said with a sympathetic shrug, and a pat of his muscular arm.

So this morning I put to the curb, in Hefty bags, Pennsylvania's first tropical rainforest. I mean, I know the chimps were pretty ticked off, but the lion is currently curled up on my front porch in the sun, tail flicking, paw curling contentedly.

I just hope he finds a new place to sun himself by the time the mailman comes. I'm expecting some stuff today.

Oh, and Tarzan? Well, you know, the thing is-- ol' Ralph of the Jungle may not be the brightest ape in the zoo but he does have a certain charm. So I set him up inside the house. He's in there right now testing the weight limit on my chandeliers, and enjoying a nice pitcher of mango iced tea.

As long as no one calls in a noise complaint about this mysterious yodeling, he should be just fine.

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