I’d like to be able to claim I was drunk at the point of impact but the fact is, it was only about 9:00pm, the kids were still up and the time for relaxation and alcohol consumption hadn’t arrived.
To set the scene, Mrs Baldwin and I were chatting in our conservatory, I got up to answer the call of nature and wandered through our lounge, into the darkened kitchen, through on to the utility room and finally into the toilet. Upon arrival I switched on the loo light and got on with the purpose of the visit.
As I left, I switched the light off and that plunged my world into darkness. At that point I made a mistake, my eyes hadn’t adjusted and so in effect I was temporarily blind – as I walked out of the toilet door, I walked straight into the door that separates the kitchen from the utility room.
In coming through that door in the first place, it had swung back into a half closed position and so as I left the toilet, no more than three feet later, the left side of my temple met the rough edge of the door and with quite a thud too.
I didn’t see the door at all and that meant that I wasn’t ready for the impact, I didn’t have my hands up and that meant the head butt was a complete surprise - at the time I yowled in pain and let loose a stream of expletives.
I staggered back into the conservatory without sustaining further injury and then Mrs Baldwin found me an ice pack for my bleeding head. Rather stupidly (and it didn’t take me long to realise this), I put the ice pack on my face straight from the freezer! Thirty seconds later and blimey I was in yet more pain. Think about an ice cream brain freeze but much worse. As I pulled the pack off my head I realised I’d had it over my left eye and was struggling to see again – you see (although I didn’t) my eyelid wasn’t working properly .
Picture this; I am slumped on a sofa, in pain, trying to reduce the swelling on my forehead whilst simultaneously trying to avoid frostbite and then I have the added joy of Mrs and Master Baldwin laughing at me and offering words of wisdom along the lines of ‘you can’t keep taking the ice pack off, the swelling won’t go down if you do”.
So this incident started with me talking a piss and ended up with me having the piss taken out of me. Ah the joys of marriage and parenthood.
Still, on the bright side, at least I got a blog post out of it.
My note to self – don’t do it again! Obvious perhaps but I will have to think more in future because there is every possibility that in a similar set of conditions I’d do the same thing again.
If thinking doesn’t save me and there is a next time (or Mrs B. does actually resort to physical abuse, maybe over another seventies purchase), the only alternative will be a crash helmet. Got to protect my devilish good looks somehow!
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