Group Activity Avoidence

After mentioning the other day that the Prime Geek and I have ventured into the troubled waters of gym life, I received a few emails expressing confusion over why I seemed adamantly opposed to joining any type of organized sport. As I'm stuck right in the middle of a massive house turnover – the woodstove installers will be here soon, and its a tough job to write while your home is infested with chimney sweeps – I thought I might pull up something I wrote not too long ago, in an effort to show WHY I avoid anything that requires any sense of innate grace or agility. Hope you enjoy a little peek into the day to day life of your Natural Nerd.

Recently, your friendly neighborhood Natural Nerd learned a few important life lessons. Shall we go over them today class?

Lesson the first. When home alone, balancing oneself on a rickety stool THEN removing oneself from said stool to kneel atop the pointy two inches of kitchen sink in an attempt to reach and raise an old and HEAVY window sash that has been more than likely left closed for years.... is not the wisest course of action. Although points will be rewarded for the foresight to set the cordless phone within reach if the nice men in the emergency vehicles need to be spoken to. Sadly these points will be removed in......

Lesson the second. Upon REACHING previously stated sash, one should really maybe consider stopping until a stronger person is in the home with one after discovering that not only is it a difficult object to stretch for... it has apparently been painted over at least once, sealing it shut. Points are rewarded for quick thinking and the use of a bread knife around the seals, but these are quickly stripped for failure to think through the need of bracing material once the window is opened. For in this failure, if one simply tries to jamb the sash as high as possible and hope years of thick paint layers will cause a natural brace to be formed so one has time to A) slide UP the screen window and B) slide down the storm window so the multitude of cats cannot escape out into the wild blue yonder - one would be incorrect in this hope. This is where we learn in

Lesson the third, that a 8 paned heavy old wooden sash, when suddenly dropping from a distance of not less than 18 inches at full speed upon BOTH of ones wrists will, sadly, result in a moment where time and space have no real meaning... for there is only pain in that eternal second. Pain and an overwhelming inability to both SEE, and to draw breath. (See previous sentence regarding the only substance allowed in that second, IE Pain.) Upon leaving that eternal void of mind numbing agony, one may gain points for mildly hysterical laughter and an attempt to show that one is really fine, but these will only be awarded if there is another life form in the home to see this strength of character. As the only possible entities are cats... sadly these points will have to be skipped. Also, the immediate - although quickly squashed - desire for ones mommy would have rendered the points invalid anyway. This quickly brings us to

Lesson the forth. Once the immediate assault upon ones person is over, there is still the little matter of removing oneself FROM the encumbering window sash. This is hindered not only by the concern that both wrists might, in point of fact, be smashed beyond recognition AS wrists, but in the realization that to open the window one will have to use the possibly smashed wrists as levers. In this lesson we quickly see that hoping A) some random stranger sent from the heavens themselves will suddenly appear and rescue one, B) that perhaps one could simply wait for ones husband - 9 hours to go - to get home and lift the sash, or C) that ones cats will suddenly drop the facade of being mere felines and unveil themselves as space traveling super beings who have hidden their opposable thumbs just for and event such as this...... are all for naught. In fact, in lesson the fourth, one deals with the sad realization that one must help oneself, and should also do so quickly as ones balance on the previously mentioned two inches of sink is becoming precarious in the extreme. This leads us class, to

Lesson the fifth. Where one learns one CAN open windows using stumps once known as hands.... it just isn't too jolly of an moment. Any points that might have been awarded are quickly removed by the amount of angry invectives spewing forth from one at a rate that causes four cats to scurry upstairs. A window's parentage is brought into the profanity laden shouts, as well as the hopeful demise of any and all that might have had a hand in the construction of the house. However. Points WILL be awarded for bloody minded stubbornness for, after ascertaining that the wrists are not shattered, merely bruised shadows of themselves, going back the window and getting the damn storm windows pulled into place!

Finally in lesson the sixth, we come to the conclusion that the best possible thing to do is to spend the rest of the day sitting very still in a padded chair watching mindless television in the hopes that one will not be attacked by any more of the house around one.

Class dismissed.

Yup. That's my life. Sometimes.... ya gotta giggle and go with it or risk being found banging your head against a wall.

Any questions now in my aversion to activities that put me in close proximity of : hard balls, heavy bats, slippery floors, or groups of people running?

I thought not.