listen to your mum

you remember what your mum used to say to you when you did play-fighting? everyone has done it, and everyone has heard it:

"if you keep doing that, someone will get hurt"

and yet people still did it, and people always got hurt. it's funny - but even as an adult, i remember my mum saying it, and i even say it to the kids.

and i say it to jo. we're kids - we admit it, we accept it, and we get on with it. and we always play fight. we're always beating one another up, and you can bet your bottom dollar, someone will get hurt. sometimes it's me (ok, usually, it's me) and sometimes it's jo.

last night, we were mucking around - it started... er... you know, i don't know HOW it started, but anyway, we were mucking around. i pin her, she kicks me in the head. i poke her in the ribs, she sticks her tongue in my eye. i tickle her foot, she kicks me in the shoulder - that sort of thing.

so - at one point, she had me pinned and on the edge of the bed, and i was slipping. i was going to fall and go crash. bear in mind, three times i said "that's enough, i am trying to read" and three times, she carried on (her version will be i started it, but as she has no voice here, my story stands!). so i tried to get out of being pinned by rolling back onto the bed. as i rolled, i realised i was acting like a roller, and moving her across the bed was quite simple, so i figured - you want to hang me off the bed, i will hang YOU from the bed and so i got her across the bed and dangled her. har har.

what i DIDN'T count on were three things.

1- momentum. i moved her across the bed so quickly, it was hard to stop.
2- gravity. i moved too much of her off the edge of the bed.
3- balance. the formula SHOULD have been obvious. momentum+gravity=moving force. a moving force unbalanced allows gravity to work with extra strength.

the result? jo fell. and i don't just mean "oops thud" i mean she fell.

as i've mentioned before, we have a large bed. it is very big. added to this, it is also rather high. other things to take into consideration - we have a cramped bedroom. despite the size of our house, we have some of the kids furniture in our room as they have more junk than us. so - at the end of our bed, we have two three-draw chests, one on top of the other.

anyway - as jo went (with some force i might add) she caught her upper thigh on the corner of the bottom chest. ouchie. so - the force of a person hitting the bottom chest caused the top chest to slip. and fall - straight at jo. i should also add, the top of this draw is laden with books and "stuff".

seeing this and trying my hardest to NOT get her killed, i managed to push the falling draws the other way, thus not crushing jo to death. i should also add this is about midnight - so a three-draw chest falling 4ft onto the floor made a teeny thump. so, all falling debris ceased, i check on jo.

now, to her credit, she was laughing. sort of. i mean, she was hurt and there were tears, but she was laughing. we assessed the damage. her upper thigh has a really nasty gash-come-graze on it, bleeding and bruised already - about three inches below where the bum and the leg meet. somehow, she also grazed the back of both ankles, so we had a bit of blood there too. and with gravity being what it is, she also smacked the back of her head onto the floor. oh - and the bolt holding the base of our bed together - that stuck into her ribs as well. oops. enter the guilt factor.

before we could get her up, i had to clear the area around her - everything that was on the unit fell on/around her, so i cleared that up and got her back onto the bed. impressive bruise on the back of her leg now... and i felt even worse.

after about half an hour, i felt like a real shit. everytime jo moved she hurt, and everytime she hurt, i felt a bit shittier. bad dan. i managed to convince her that it needed cleaning, and as such i managed to hurt her even more than before. and to make sure, i put a dressing on it as the bedcovers kept moving across it and hurting her again.. see - i am a nice guy!

this morning, we've cleaned it again, and we've re-dressed it. very pretty bruise if you like that kinda thing. she's hobbling around as her leg really hurts. we've got some nice bruising on the back of ankles, a nice bruise on the ribs, and various little bruises here and there. and she's milking it! bloody women...

the moral? listen to your mum, or failing that, remember what your mum said - if you carry on, one of you will get hurt

and of course, one of you will have to clear up the mess and then feel guilty all night ;)

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