A ‘Situation’

For some reason, I seem to get into what I call ‘situations.’ A ‘situation’ is defined as something that is amazingly improbable, but happens regardless. Needless to say, situations seem to happen to me all the time.

For example: I was walking across my family’s deck when I was sixteen or so and my shoelace caught on a protruding nail, causing me to fall almost, but not quite, on my face. The reason I didn’t completely fall on my face is because I managed to mostly stop myself with my left arm. The reason I didn’t use both arms is that I had a load of 2x4s on my right shoulder and was trying to keep them from collapsing on me as I fell.

Needless to say, my dad, who was ten feet in front of me, thought this was hilarious.

NOTE: Physical pain was the source for much amusement at my house.

After picking myself up, I noticed the nail that my shoelace caught on and looked around. It was the sole, solitary nail that was sticking up. Seriously. Out of the many hundreds of nails in a 500’ square deck (yes, it was huge and I helped build it. The up and downside of having a contractor for a father), I managed to trip on the ONLY one that was sticking up.

I did get my revenge, as I pulled the offending nail and replaced it with a screw. I’m sure that taught it a lesson.

Anyway, why I am blathering on about this? Well, this morning, after showering, I was pulling on a hooded sweatshirt when my glasses somehow caught on the inside of the sweater, right as I was pulling it over my head, leaving me in an awkward position where I couldn’t see and with my arms jutted out at odd angles.

“So,” I can hear you thinking. “Just disentangle yourself!”

But it’s not that simple. You see, I had just finished a fantastic bicep workout that morning and my arms were literally exhausted. I was therefore stuck with them over my head, almost powerless to move them, with my sweater pulling my eyeglasses down across my nose in a rather awkward way.

I actually stood there for a few seconds, as I processed why I could neither see nor move my arms. “Well, shit.” I finally said, before beginning the slow, weirdly painful process of pulling the sweater off without inadvertently smashing my glasses.

The culprit? The screw holding the right eyeglass arm had come loose and (you guessed it), got caught in the seam of the sweatshirt. I found my eyeglasses kit and tightened the screw and then successfully managed to finish dressing myself.

So there you go. I managed to entrap myself in my own sweater, all because I worked out and a screw came loose. I guess that’ll teach me to try to stay fit and correct my vision.

Cheers,
-Jason