26-10-2015, 07:19 AM
1
Cheque Card
Written years ago when cheques and cheque cards were the way to buy goods. A chunk of writing but it is a fictional story rather than a topical post:Dear Sir,
I appear to have cut in half the new cheque card that you sent me. Having received and signed the new card, I went and got the old one to destroy it like you're supposed to. I picked up the scissors and was about to perform this act. Just at that moment the kettle, which I had earlier put on to make a cup of tea, boiled. If I had put the scissors down at this point then writing to you would not have been necessary. Sadly I didn't and I feel that I must explain how this led to the destruction of the card.
As I turned around to see to the kettle, the scissor blades caught the edge of the sugar bowl knocking it off the kitchen worktop. It was a good quality lead crystal bowl and indeed, we had often marvelled at its size to weight ratio. Being first thing in the morning, my feet were bare and the left one got badly hurt when the bowl, with its contents, landed on it.
As a knee jerk reaction (literally), I quickly pulled my foot up in order rub it and hopefully relieve the pain. Not thinking about the scissors still being clutched in my hand, I stabbed myself deeply in the thigh with some considerable force due to my leg's upward momentum.
I hopped around on my other leg trying to stem the flow of blood, rub my foot and keep my balance. Unfortunately I was unable to do this for very long because I hopped on the edge of the sugar bowl. It flipped it over in a sort of backwards 'tiddlywinks' motion sending sugar lumps flying everywhere. The heavy bowl came down right on top of my foot just where the bones are close to the surface. I was soon dancing on the spot trying to take the weight off both feet at the same time.
My wife, who can only walk with the aid of crutches, came to see what all the fuss was about. Realising my plight she tried to steady me up. I didn't have great presence of mind by this time and I rather stupidly grasped at one of her crutches. It came away easily from under her because the end of it was standing in some of my blood, which by now had made the floor a little slippery in places.
We both fell. I initially landed hard in a sitting position right on top of the upturned sugar bowl. The pain was indescribable. I only had my dressing gown on and it had flown up during the fall. It was only later that I discovered that, by sheer ill fortune, a sugar lump was delicately balanced on the bowl's upturned base. To avoid being coarse I will not describe precisely what had happened. Suffice it to say that the sugar lump would never see a teacup.
My wife came down on top of me pushing me flat and knocking the breath out of me. She somehow pole vaulted on her other crutch at the same time, which accelerated her into the cooker door head first. The bulk of her body finally came to rest on my face. Then I was unable to breathe anyway, so it didn't matter too much about being winded. She was powerless to get off me being somewhat in shock and dazed by the head injury she had sustained.
It was only with supreme effort just as consciousness was starting to fade that I managed to push her off my face. A few minutes later we argued who was best placed to go and call for an ambulance. I eventually lost and dragged myself to the telephone to call for help.
The doctors did a wonderful job of patching us up. The removal of the sugar lump was perhaps the most painful and certainly the most embarrassing part of the whole sorry episode for me. How the doctors and nurses could find it so damned funny I just can't understand. It must have made medical history because they kept phoning other departments in the hospital suggesting that they should come over and have a look. I can only hope it stays out of our local paper as fame on account of this would be undesirable. I hate to think what the headline might read.
The ambulance finally delivered me back home in the early evening but they decided that my wife ought to stay in for a period of observation. She may be allowed home tomorrow providing she can face it. I hobbled into the kitchen to make the pot of tea that I didn't get earlier. I carefully limped around the debris and blood that was all over the floor. I idly wondered what could be done about the deep dent in the cooker door that had been put there by my wife's head. It was then that I noticed the two cheque cards sitting on the work-top. I wiped the scissors clean and, what with the cards being identical in appearance and me not having my glasses on, went and cut the wrong one in half. After all the aforementioned grief you can perhaps imagine the sick feeling this gave me.
I hope this letter gives you a reasonable enough explanation as to why I need another card. My wife has offered, no insisted, that she will undertake the destruction of the old cards in future. I asked our neighbour to come in and throw the now hated sugar bowl and scissors in the dustbin because the pain wouldn't allow me to walk far enough to do it myself.
I hope you will agree that we have suffered enough for my error. I would be grateful for your prompt action in sending yet another card as the old one only has a few days left before it expires.
Yours faithfully,
@ Mart, I would guess this little story in similar form has actually happened.
26-10-2015, 10:19 AM
5
Re: Cheque Card
Thanks Aysa. Glad it made you smile.
It is a similar thing to the builder and the barrow Alan. I know what's coming in that but it still makes me laugh when I hear it.
I expect some people do have a trails of disaster like that Meg. There must be other other fictitious accounts written too. Nothing really inspired me though. It was only that I was mostly stuck indoors for months and had to find a way to pass the time, so I got a computer and discovered the powers of a word processor combined with an over-active imagination.
The wife being on crutches was true at the time but nothing else. Not much in the literary sense but it kept me happy and smiling for a while.
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