Author: Lloyd Coutts

Long before I ever heard of Hunter S Thompson and started modelling my life on that idiot, I wanted to be Ernest Hemingway, minus, perhaps, the gratuitous slaughter of warm-blooded animals, but certainly with a strong focus on the womanising, marlin-fishing, heavy drinking and staccato writing aspects of his testosterone-laden life.

I always fancied myself getting injured fighting some lost cause, maybe taking a bullet in a fleshy part of my anatomy (where it would leave a dramatic scar but inflict the minimal amount of pain and damage) in a forgotten war, or being gored by a bull in Pamplona, or even being knifed by a salty old sea dog in fight over a woman’s (questionable) honour in a seedy harbour cafe.

I had a chance to reflect on this as I lay writhing in agony on the floor of my bathroom the other day.

I was experiencing the kind of pain that narrows your focus down to the essentials of life, such as breathing. It came in waves, and I could only moan and whimper, mostly because the dog had taken the opportunity to squat on my chest and give my face a thorough licking.

As I suffered the indignity of being French-kissed by my dog while in the grip of a savage pain, my first thought was: my brother’s going to kill himself laughing over this.

The sad part about it was that, rather than find it hard to believe that I had caused myself a near-mortal injury hanging curtains, he would find it eminently believable, which would greatly add to his schadenfreude.

Because, dear and gentle reader, I had hurt myself, not racing motorcycles, or sailing to Tahiti, or wrestling beasts with my bare hands, but while hanging curtains. Frilly floral curtains.

I sighed, because for my brother this would bring to mind the time I ran full-tilt into a wall for no apparent reason, causing my family to rupture internal organs as they fell about, choking with laughter.

My childhood was littered with similar, inexplicable occasions. Crockery would find itself smashed on the floor, having only seconds before been nestled gently in my hands. At school I would find myself on the floor of the classroom having fallen on my head for no good reason. Once, during a school soccer match, I fell flat on my face before I was tackled, causing a legendary outbreak of mirth and merriment.

The curtain-hanging wound was a curious injury.

I have hung curtains before, but only under heavy direction from humourless women. I paid no attention at the time, and did precisely what they told me, while making no mental notes and keeping a firm eye on the cricket.

Some of you will know that hanging curtains involves counting, counting the little loops at the top of the back of the curtain, then dividing the number of little plastic hooks by two, and the number of loops by three (where appropriate), taking away the number you first thought of and multiplying by Pi, where x is greater than Ω. Times two.

So there I was, having employed the kind of calculus it takes to put a man on the moon, and I was greatly satisfied with myself. The folds were looking good, I thought, although I wasn’t really sure what that meant.

Good heavens man, I thought, you’ve done it! And it was in this moment of reverie that it happened.

Somehow, (although I was not conscious of making any movement) I managed to fall from the chair I was standing on, and in descending open my legs so that the chair’s back neatly and with unerring accuracy, cleft my posterior to visit outrage on my rectum.

Now, had this been an artistic performance of some description, this manoeuvre would have required the kind of choreography for which people win gold medals because, looking back, I realised that I must have pirouetted in mid-air at some point in order to present just the right angle for the aforementioned outrage to be perpetrated.

Now if only I had gone into a tuck and executed a forward role they way we were taught in judo classes, things may have turned out quite differently. The dog would certainly have been impressed.

However, given my rather impressive weight, height and gravity, (and with a slight adjustment of the aforementioned mathematical calculation), you may have some inkling of the agony I was in.

To add insult to injury, the accident was of the kind where it was unobserved and left no record of its assault. The chair was in exactly the same place, the curtains were well hung, God was in his heaven.

Worse, there was no visible injury, no blood, and certainly no bruise I could ever show to anyone.

Nothing but me and the pain and the humiliation, and the bloody dog licking my face.

When the last wave of pain finally broke on the shore of my shame, I had time to ruminate.

Since my second divorce I have been gathering my faeces (as the classical scholars say), and I have been gathering material for a book on modern living for the functionally dysfunctional.

My research has included cleaning up after myself, doing my own laundry, cooking my own food and generally doing the things a woman in one guise or another has been doing for me my entire life, including fixing my brakes.

In the main I have been having fun. In the past I have been involved in major business and other projects that were satisfying and rewarding, but never have I had the sense of accomplishment I get when my flat is as clean as a whistle, dinner’s in the oven, and the dog has been walked and washed.

Hanging washing on the line in the dusk the other day I felt like I was in a TS Eliot poem, and I realised that while I was not particularly happy, I was no longer actively, or should I say pro-actively, unhappy.

So that day, on my bathroom floor, when the dog got bored, and the pain subsided, I got up and cleaned the toilet bowl, taking care not to make any sudden movements.

Top of Form