strass
Well-Known Member
My wife had been out of the country for a week and was flying back on her birthday.
The nanny turned up lame on me and I ended up having to take my son to work with me overnight. I dropped him off at school on the way home in the morning. My intentions were to get a couple hours of sleep before I went and got my wife a cake and got myself prettied up so that I could take her out that night. I was to pick her up from the airport just after noon and had no way to contact her since she was in the air.
When I got home, I realized that the door was locked and I had left the key with my son. All the windows were locked as well and the alarm system was on. It would have taken about an hour to drive back to my son’s school, check-in, get the key from him and get back home. Having just worked all night, this seemed like a huge pain.
Then, it occurred to me that I had my vehicle, so I could get in the garage. Once the garage door was open, I took a ladder and climbed up into the rafters and over to the attic space above the house. The sun was just starting to come up and the attic was very dark. My plan was simple, find the attic space with the flooring on it (which I guessed was 20 ft from the garage) and then find the trap door (which I estimated to be about 10 ft. more). I could then push the trap door open from the top and let myself down. (See where this is going?)
I crawled from beam to beam in the dark and found my way to floored attic space. No problem. Then, I stood up to stretch my back. I was only 10 ft from the trap door…I was home free. Failing to realize that I had shuffled my feet a bit while stretching, I took a couple of steps before going back to crawling to find the door. Well, that was it. 2 steps and WHAM!!!
I had stepped on the trap door at the part farthest from the hinge. It swung open and I went down through it banging myself up on the frame along the way. When I hit the ground, I was at an angle and my right foot was caught underneath me. Amazingly, amidst all the banging of the door and thudding of my 270 lb body hitting the floor, I could still hear my ankle snap.
I got my foot out from underneath me as quickly as I could and then just laid on my back for a moment to express my feelings. Having used every 4-letter word I had ever heard (and then made up a couple more), I decided it was time to get help. I rolled onto my left side and put my right leg on top of the left. Then, I started pulling myself across the floor. I got to the back door and unlocked it. I even managed to pull myself up high enough to disable the alarm system, and reach a phone. I called a buddy from work who only lived 15 minutes away and asked if he would give me a ride to the hospital on his way in because I couldn’t drive with a broken right leg.
“Are you sure it’s broken?â€
Why do people ask things like that? He said he was on his way so I laid my head down on some dirty shoes to rest. 20 minutes later…I called him to see what the hang up was.
“Well, I’m still 35 minutes out. I wasn’t at home when you called.â€
Aahhh!!! Reckon he couldn’t tell me that to start with so I could call someone else? Knowing that I had time to kill, I looked down in terror as I realized I was wearing a new pair of jeans my wife had just bought me. They’d cut them off at the hospital. Unacceptable.
I’ve never liked our Ranch-style house because it’s ridiculously long. Now I was really going to feel how long. I scooted all the way from the back door on one end to the master bedroom-closet at the other end. That felt great. Now, comes a very unique experience: I sat right there and changed out of my jeans and into some shorts while trying to hold my broken leg as still as possible. By far, the worst part was getting the shoe off.
I drug myself back to the back door and passed out. My buddy finally got there and the idiot tries to pick me up. (He’s Mexican: 5 ft nothing and 100 lbs less than me.) All he managed to do was strain his lower back and hurt my leg a little more. While he was grabbing at his back and gasping something about a slipped disk, I got to my feet, oops, I mean foot and hopped out to his truck.
At the emergency room, things were pretty uneventful. My friend from work had just strained his back, no major damage. They took a billion X-rays of me, slapped a splint cast on me and told me to go see a specialist in a couple days when the swelling went down and he’d put me in a permanent cast. I’d be good as new in 6 weeks.
3 days later, on my son’s birthday, I went to see the Orthopedic Specialist. My wife was with me and we were looking forward to getting the cast swapped out real quick and then getting on with our plans for our son’s birthday. The doctor didn’t realize that the hospital told me I’d be fine and he jumped right into talking about the plate he was going to put in my ankle and the pins to hold everything in place…â€don’t worry the cartilage should heal well once I stitch it back into place and you’ll probably be able to walk fairly normally within 5 or 6 months.†I looked at my wife as if to ask where the hidden camera was. Her eyes were glistening as she asked me if I was OK.
No hidden cameras. I had surgery on Tuesday…Now have a shiny new plate and 8 pins in my ankle. But at least I proved that I could get in the house through the attic. Does this qualify me for some kind of doofus award?
The nanny turned up lame on me and I ended up having to take my son to work with me overnight. I dropped him off at school on the way home in the morning. My intentions were to get a couple hours of sleep before I went and got my wife a cake and got myself prettied up so that I could take her out that night. I was to pick her up from the airport just after noon and had no way to contact her since she was in the air.
When I got home, I realized that the door was locked and I had left the key with my son. All the windows were locked as well and the alarm system was on. It would have taken about an hour to drive back to my son’s school, check-in, get the key from him and get back home. Having just worked all night, this seemed like a huge pain.
Then, it occurred to me that I had my vehicle, so I could get in the garage. Once the garage door was open, I took a ladder and climbed up into the rafters and over to the attic space above the house. The sun was just starting to come up and the attic was very dark. My plan was simple, find the attic space with the flooring on it (which I guessed was 20 ft from the garage) and then find the trap door (which I estimated to be about 10 ft. more). I could then push the trap door open from the top and let myself down. (See where this is going?)
I crawled from beam to beam in the dark and found my way to floored attic space. No problem. Then, I stood up to stretch my back. I was only 10 ft from the trap door…I was home free. Failing to realize that I had shuffled my feet a bit while stretching, I took a couple of steps before going back to crawling to find the door. Well, that was it. 2 steps and WHAM!!!
I had stepped on the trap door at the part farthest from the hinge. It swung open and I went down through it banging myself up on the frame along the way. When I hit the ground, I was at an angle and my right foot was caught underneath me. Amazingly, amidst all the banging of the door and thudding of my 270 lb body hitting the floor, I could still hear my ankle snap.
I got my foot out from underneath me as quickly as I could and then just laid on my back for a moment to express my feelings. Having used every 4-letter word I had ever heard (and then made up a couple more), I decided it was time to get help. I rolled onto my left side and put my right leg on top of the left. Then, I started pulling myself across the floor. I got to the back door and unlocked it. I even managed to pull myself up high enough to disable the alarm system, and reach a phone. I called a buddy from work who only lived 15 minutes away and asked if he would give me a ride to the hospital on his way in because I couldn’t drive with a broken right leg.
“Are you sure it’s broken?â€
Why do people ask things like that? He said he was on his way so I laid my head down on some dirty shoes to rest. 20 minutes later…I called him to see what the hang up was.
“Well, I’m still 35 minutes out. I wasn’t at home when you called.â€
Aahhh!!! Reckon he couldn’t tell me that to start with so I could call someone else? Knowing that I had time to kill, I looked down in terror as I realized I was wearing a new pair of jeans my wife had just bought me. They’d cut them off at the hospital. Unacceptable.
I’ve never liked our Ranch-style house because it’s ridiculously long. Now I was really going to feel how long. I scooted all the way from the back door on one end to the master bedroom-closet at the other end. That felt great. Now, comes a very unique experience: I sat right there and changed out of my jeans and into some shorts while trying to hold my broken leg as still as possible. By far, the worst part was getting the shoe off.
I drug myself back to the back door and passed out. My buddy finally got there and the idiot tries to pick me up. (He’s Mexican: 5 ft nothing and 100 lbs less than me.) All he managed to do was strain his lower back and hurt my leg a little more. While he was grabbing at his back and gasping something about a slipped disk, I got to my feet, oops, I mean foot and hopped out to his truck.
At the emergency room, things were pretty uneventful. My friend from work had just strained his back, no major damage. They took a billion X-rays of me, slapped a splint cast on me and told me to go see a specialist in a couple days when the swelling went down and he’d put me in a permanent cast. I’d be good as new in 6 weeks.
3 days later, on my son’s birthday, I went to see the Orthopedic Specialist. My wife was with me and we were looking forward to getting the cast swapped out real quick and then getting on with our plans for our son’s birthday. The doctor didn’t realize that the hospital told me I’d be fine and he jumped right into talking about the plate he was going to put in my ankle and the pins to hold everything in place…â€don’t worry the cartilage should heal well once I stitch it back into place and you’ll probably be able to walk fairly normally within 5 or 6 months.†I looked at my wife as if to ask where the hidden camera was. Her eyes were glistening as she asked me if I was OK.
No hidden cameras. I had surgery on Tuesday…Now have a shiny new plate and 8 pins in my ankle. But at least I proved that I could get in the house through the attic. Does this qualify me for some kind of doofus award?