Monday, November 28, 2005

The Rips



Well its time to share another little disaster from my tales of madness.
The incident you are about to read about is entirely true in every single respect. There is no exaggeration anywhere, as any would be pointless.......

About four years ago I was contracting to a large insurance firm in their IT department in City Centre Dublin. Dawson Street as it happens for those who wish to guess what the firm is...

Anyway, My Boss, Harry for the sake of this account, has asked me to go to Server Room Two and repatch some of the panels as the cables were in an awful state. After about an hour on the job alone in the server room I start to get a little bored and so decide to go get a cup of coffee. I at this point begin to untangle myself from the cables around my feet and in the process turn around in order to make my exit from the room. Unfortunately untangling myself suddenly becomes a problem as my foot slips through a gap in the floor. I instantly realised my foot was jammed and so I bent down to attempt to free my foot. This is where things got SORE. During the action of bending down my bum extends towards the patch panel behind me and catches a very large sharp edge to the poorly finished panel. It totally impales my rear end and I let out a yelp. I immediately pulled myself of the metal spike and in the same movement tripped on a cable and fell to the floor, thankfully freeing my foot in the process. My problem now is that my bum is pouring blood at an ever increasing rate and by trousers are ripped through at the back. Not Good.

As this calamity unfolded, My boss Harry hears the commotion as he is passing the server room and immediately enters the room only to find me gathering myself together while trying to stop the blood flow. He walks over to me and as he stands beside me he has a total laughing fit, and I mean hysterics as I revealed the disaster that had occurred moments before. In his laughter he bends over double and IMPALES HIMSELF ON THE SAME SPIKE! He too lets out a yelp, lifts himself off the spike, and attempts to stop the torrent of blood flow from his rear! At this point terror enters his eyes! I am immediately asked if I take drugs, or have AIDs etc. He was somewhat massively relieved to hear that I had never touched any drugs and was carrying no STDs etc :)

However this story is only half over. We now had to figure out what to do. We realised we had to make our way to the first aid room. We literally legged it out of the server room, blood gushing to the first aid room. What other employees thought of us as we rushed down the corridor clutching our collective bleeding asses I'll never know, but people kept strangely silent. I think fear and shock may have been the prevailing emotion. After running down 3 corridors, and catching the elevator we made it to the first aid room and applied bandages to our behinds. Thankfully we managed our own :) After the gushing was got under control, my boss and I took a joint trip to Marks and Spencer to buy new trousers, wearing jackets around our waists on the way in order to cover our lacking trousers.
We were happy now that nothing else could go wrong, only to find when we returned back to the office that the security guard had got it all on tape and had already shown our corridor dash to several staff members. I have never and will never live this down :)

It came from the Dark



This is a little picture of me going slighly overboard for a fancy dress party. I bought some body paint and spent 3 hours applying it from head to toe. Dont ask.
Anyway, you cant go to that much trouble and not let the world see......

Friday, November 18, 2005

Another 'Moment'


Those of you who read my past post on the subject will know that I have an unusual ability to get myself into the most insane of situations. Well there are many many more, so heres another one:

The Ketchup Beans......
OK Picture this, Im living in a rented house in Dublin with a few friends. It's a Monday morning and I am in the kitchen with reuben - (www.comedywithoutwords.com) and Mike getting breakfast. Anyway somehow we start up a discussion of the best way to get ketchup out of one of those Akward Heinz bottles. Various options are suggested and then I bring to the table the option I believe to be most suitable - Centrifugal Force.
My suggestion is greeted with a mix of both concern and terror. At this point I decided a demonstration was in order, so I had a look in the cupboards for a ketchup bottle. I failed to find the aforementioned article, but I did find a tin of baked beans. In a short moment of what I assumed was logic, I considered this the perfect stand-in for the ketchup bottle. I proceeded to hold the tin at arms length while standing at one side of the kitchen. I started to swing my arm in a large circle in order to demonstrate how one might encourage ketchup towards the lid of a bottle when held with lid facing the outside of the circle.
At this point reuben and Mike are standing at the other side of the kitchen leaning against the kitchen counter with pieces of toast in their hands.
In order to get a little closer to them so that they could "see" better, I decided to move toward the middle of the kitchen whilst still swinging the beans in glee. Wrong move. As I took a step forward, my tin of beans, hand and arm entered a dome of lights above my head with a shattering crash. Reuben and Mike are instantly attacked by a massive swarm of glass shards, the lights above my head are vapourised and much of the fallout lands on their toast while it is entering their mouths. I am at this point in a state of panic, examining my wrist to see how quickly I'm going to die, to my relief no cuts were to be found!!
Mike and Reuben were OK too, however Mike spent the next five days convinced he could feel glass in his throat.
Alls well that ends well :)

In my next installment of "A History of Calamity" I shall help you understand the importance of not accidently kissing a general when you are introduced to him, especially if you are both guys.

Guys, I said Guys.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Sometimes I get myself into bizarre situations........


As anyone who knows me will testify to, I have a knack of getting myself into bizarre situations. People have often told me that I should start writing them down, so finally I am. Warning do not continue unless you are prepared to loose all respect for me!!

Let me share one little incident:

Picture this, I'm the IT guy working for a small finance firm of about 100 people in Dublin. One day I am asked to carry a large table from downstairs to an office upstairs. Sounds normal so far. Well once I eventually lunge the awkward object upstairs I go about setting it down very carefully, bending my knees as much as possible as I set it down in its final resting place.
While this maneuver is happening the MD and the Head of Finance wander out of a meeting room and are greeted with a view of my behind, however as they witness this gigantic sight, a horrific sound is heard, and large rip is witnessed and the wonderful expanse previously hidden from the world by court order is exposed to their sensitive eyes.
I at this point panic, I feel the rip, I look down and in my upside down view of the of the world behind me witness the astonished eyes of the managing director and the head of finance. Then I suddenly realise that my view is framed by my new pair of boxer shorts, covered in sheep.
I struggled to think quickly, I shook the trousers off my feet, as they were entirely ripped, I take of my t-shirt (the only thing I am wearing on top) and wrap it around my waist. I now make it with great speed and little grace down the corridor wearing only my runners, a pair of boxers and a t-shirt around my waist. I reach the stairs, pass several staff members, leaving them in a daze, head downstairs and out the door while leaving a stunned security guard behind me.
At this point I am standing in the middle of a business park, I remember there is a taxi rank outside the business park and up the road. I dash toward the entrance passing yet more security guards, out the gate and then can see the rank up the road with a few taxis in waiting to my joy. On the final leg of my run, I run past the entrance of what should obviously be my home, a mental hospital with heavy gates and extremely high walls. Finally I jump into a cab and ask the simply stunned driver to take me home. Thank God he did.