Since last I partook of the opportunity to use the internet as my own personal grimy soapbox, from which to silently shout crude racial epithets and slurs against women folk, I have defrauded my way through yet another festival. Seriously, how have they not yet picked up on my glaring shortcomings? OK, not my shortcomings in glaring. I glare good. I mean....oh for fuck's sake, can I start over?
Festival done. Nothing new or exciting in this increasingly common happening, save for the absence of pinpointable moment of injury. If you're not aware of why that is worthy of note, then strap yourself in, for this may get uncomfortable and will probably end with one of us being hobbled. Fret not, it'll be me. Repeatedly.
It all began so long ago. Yet it feels like it was just yesterday....yesterday....yesterday....
.....do you have any idea how hard it is to enact a textual flashback?
.....yesterday.....
....."Congratulations, Mrs Byrne, a bouncing baby boy. Stop bouncing him? Ah come on, what damage could it do to his mind really".....
.....too far back....
A year ago, I had my first moment of infamous injury. Actually, for the sake of total accuracy, it was merely more lamentable than many other such occurrences by virtue of its continuing consequences. I've broken knuckles in violent outbursts at tables, broken toes in moments of indoor football folly and aerated walls with my foot through acts of sheer lunacy, yet those were outbursts of anger or the rises of a competitive temperament. Not so one year ago.
Ever been so monumentally moronic that you injured yourself in a more benign manner than I? Trust me, you've not. Patrolling a cinema in the aim of deluding others as to my employable merits, I came across a barricade of no great consequence. I could have walked around it, at an addition to my slight journey of a negligible 20 seconds. I could have stepped over it, at a cost of minute amounts of dignity at the public viewing of such an ungamely clambering. I could have chosen the path of least resistance and walked through it. I chose the route of most flamboyance. A month of gentlemanly garnishings later, I ditched the resultant walking stick, relegated the accompanying long coat, waistcoat and top hat ensemble to the back of the wardrobe and visited my local general practitioner.
There's no cool way to broach the topic of limbo injury. Still, being occasionally misheard as suffering a "limo injury" added a veneer of opulent class to the whole affair. Soft tissue damage to the knee and a notable dose of shame should be enough to cease such activity in future, it was wearily ventured. And if that didn't, then the disbelievers kicking the wounded knee as they whipped the cane from my grasp would do enough of a number to engender the necessary regret.
Lesson learned. No more limbo.
So six months later, there I am in a false idol "Spiegeltent" in the bosom of Edinburgh at my next festivalian employment. My birthday hath dawned. As before, I am sober. There are people to my left who I am in the process of getting to know, in my first week in the achingly gloriously architectured city. There are those to my right who I have only just encountered for the first and last time, and whose names, passingly offered, I would continue to willfully distort. Discomfort growing at the claustrophobic surroundings, I itched to take my leave for a moment. Then the impulsive idiocy struck me as it will. I was trapped betwixt peoples, penned in by a table. Only one way out. Flamboyance, don't fail me now, you saucy devil. And so the limbo did commence once more. Heck, at this stage I was cocky enough that, presented with a disgruntled midget, I would ably limbo between the fucker's legs, if required by curious circumstance. This time, thankfully, my notably posable legs did not let me down. Yet, just as suddenly as the thought had hit me, so did the table. It shook with the force of the impact. Scarcely controlled laughter coursed across the booth, growing from a mild giggle to a reverberating riot as I rose to my still usable legs. I turned to accept my latest shambolic moment of very mild public failing. The laughter faded only momentarily as the blood trickling down my once useful features registered with my audience. A cacophony of cackling commenced anew as my own personal smirk sullied my visage.
The two day hangover/mild concussion and slight scarring would certainly end my willful abuse of self through limbo. And so it did....
....for one month....
A return to Dublin, and the emergence of yet another festival had hastened the growth of my seasonal strut. I walked as may a man continually shaping to avoid the over-amorous intent of a dwarf sized rapist scaling his inner-thigh (to paraphrase a linguistically undistinguished soul, "there's an imagine for you"). With such swaggers came a decrease in my peripheral awareness, perhaps. Such I would have to believe given the injury to next befall my person.
An aged lady. A small car. A turn missed, necessitating reversal. A gangly fellow distracted by his own curious stride and some blues riffs. A collision not surprising. My belated efforts to evade her progress were in vain. Half-hearted shrieks ruined any remaining semblance of manhood in the affair. My knee was merely twisted in my efforts to reach safety and the impact was minimal. The poor auld girl was greatly perturbed by the events. I assured her of my being intact. We conversed briefly as I attempted to assuage her fears of my imminent demise. Apparently, I passingly resembled a Hollywood sex-symbol in her eyes in those fleeting moments. Sure, it was "that fella from the film about all the dru....Trainspotting!". Perhaps this was her telling me I looked like a junkie, but I'm gonna look to the bright side of this coin, just this once. And so to my reliance on a walking stick I returned. Scoffing was abundant at my expense come the time for work. Yet, in mere days I was feeling sufficiently steady as to no longer require the use of a support. A free-standing spirit once more.
Until the radio upon my waistband crackled into life midweek.
Siren beckoning me towards torment: "Deebs, limbo competition on the dance floor".
Totally worth it.
Regardless, that took me to three consecutive festival limbo injuries. Bizarrely, the streak of stupidity was only broken by the unusual circumstances of my next festival exposure, a month from the last one. Seems a friend had damaged a knee in a dancefloor disaster. Another volunteer had broken an ankle by similarly robust means. Could I fill in as a last minute favour? Sure. The universe evidently saw to it that enough limb damage had been sustained by others as to negate the need for any such sacrifice on my side. Sweet salvation for my tortured body.
Ravaged as I have come to be by leg trauma, the cane did re-emerge in the midst of my latest contracted work. Yet this was merely out of necessity of bodily degradation over time. I'm a husk. Yet the closest I got to limbo related distress this time out was the following exchange of words:
Deebs: "I wonder what I'll limbo into this year?"
Exasperated colleague: "Hopefully a woman".
Heck, I refrained from endangering my mobility throughout the course of the event. Once it came to a climax, all bets were off. Something I may need to keep in mind in future though:
Jump banisters, strut smoothly away- fine.
Jump banisters, clip banisters, fall down stairs in pub- painfully embarrassing. Kill witnesses.
And so I have retired from limbo. Until the next time. I do after all have a record to defend. 0 for 3 under the limbo pole. Replace my knees and radio me in.
No comments:
Post a Comment