Trashed elbow

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The dad has, he flatly informs me, his hand in a plaster cast, fallen foul of a hairline fracture or similar. Apparently he did it with his bike, although, as he was walking with his bike rather than riding it at the time, I suspect there may have been some alcohol involved as well.

You'll get bugger all sympathy out of me, I tell him over the phone. This is not strictly true. I do sympathise with him. I'm also stoked that, when I bought his Christmas present yesterday, I ignored the little voice in the back of my head that told me to get him a watch.

The dad has never been in plaster before. Nor had I when I received a similar injury in an incident involving football and a perfidious Frenchman with murder in his heart (see archive of March '06 for misty-eyed rememb'rance) but I regard the fracturing of one's wrist as a beginning out of an ending, much like the death card in a tarot pack.

With one-handed nonchalance, I learned to tie my tie, open up my customary large Starbucks coffee, add a solid eight-second pour of sugar and seal the cup again, beat my flatmate at pool, put together my longest-ever losing streak at left-handed janken, play Happy birthday to you on the guitar and many more things besides.

When I single-handedly split apart my chopsticks on the table with a deft rap, the glowing compliment I got from Wes took my mind completely off the splinters of bamboo stuck in my fingers.

I bestrode the earth like a colossus and feared no man living.

Ahem.

I hope the dad will understand how stoical I'm being about what is, after all, his injury. I'm back home this weekend, so I'll take a marker with me and challenge him to get as many phone numbers as he can before the well of sympathy runs dry.

Labels: CLAN, SELF IMPROVEMENT