Evidence that plant life can be malicious and that's not just triffids

Look, all I'm saying is, what's distressing to one person may not be distressing to another.  I just feel I need to say that before I tell you .....

Actually, I'm not sure I can bring myself to say it ...

I just can't express it - the trauma is still with me ...

Maybe I'll just leave it until another day, when the pain has eased ....

Okay, I'll tell you.  Just don't blame me if you end up sobbing.

Ready?  Got your hanky?

Here goes.






This morning, on the way to work, a drip from a very-recently-watered hanging basket above my head fell on my glasses and made me jump.







Okay, I'll give you a moment to mop up the tears.  Sorry to share such disheartening news.  I know that, right now, you're sharing my distress.


Hey, what is that noise?  Is that ... is that ... laughter?


Whaddya mean, mwa hah hah hah hah?


Look, sunshine.  You may laugh, and think that's trivial, but if you're walking along the pavement/sidewalk/hard thing at the edge of the road, with your mind on the day ahead, and you're thinking how everything is fine and dandy and you didn't poke yourself in the eye last night and your eye bruises are healing up and no old ladies have approached you in the last week with romantic intentions, and then a dirty great globule of water hits one of your lenses, I bet YOU wouldn't like it.

Not only did I have to walk the rest of the way to walk with my right eye having clear vision and my left eye thinking it was watching a TV programme about the sea bed, but when I jumped in shock, I know that at least three car drivers who were passing laughed.  I can't be doing with that kind of humiliation before going to work.  I'm a teacher.  I need to start with a full quota of self-esteem.



Hm.  Next time, I'll know not to come to you lot with my troubles.

Comments

  1. Chris Stovell29/6/10 14:23

    That's your run of three done; nothing but blue skies ahead now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ashley Ashbee29/6/10 14:44

    How embarrassing! I must confess that I would have laughed seeing that too! Watery or smudged lenses are the worst! And it's a pain to clean them!

    ReplyDelete
  3. rachel29/6/10 14:53

    Adding insult to injury, I'd say. I loathe hanging baskets with a fervent passion. Especially the multi-coloured kind shown above, and the multiple arrays outside pubs, that blaze like a migraine for a few weeks then are left to die, brown and dismal, for the rest of the year.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Moptop29/6/10 15:06

    I've planted lettuces and have BEEN TALKING TO THEM.

    There! That puts your hanging basket escapade into perspective. I feel like I'm channelling Prince Charles. And not in a good way.

    ReplyDelete
  5. linens and royals29/6/10 17:26

    Oh, you mean you were waking along the footpath? Well I'm sure I read in a British paper here that hanging baskets were to be banned because of health and safety issues as they are just too pretty and someone could stumble whilst admiring the basket.
    The possibilty of a drip onto glasses not being thought of. Will you sue for damage to self esteem?

    ReplyDelete
  6. June29/6/10 17:40

    Take heart.
    The drivers might not have laughed.
    They might have been startled, themselves, thinking you were about to leap into their paths.
    They might have sworn at you.

    There now. Doesn't that feel better?

    ReplyDelete
  7. SmitoniusAndSonata29/6/10 22:25

    I'm surprised you managed to soldier on through the rest of the day . What a little trooper !

    ReplyDelete
  8. Brilliant Sulk29/6/10 22:43

    I admit it. I laughed. I apologize.

    Wait.

    No. I don't.

    I laughed with you Fran, not at you.

    Oh. You weren't laughing were you? Okay then, I was laughing at you.

    Sorry.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Steve30/6/10 00:05

    It may have been the tear of a crying worm. Does that make it any better?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Alan Burnett30/6/10 01:24

    I feel for you. I share your pain.I empathise to the point of emotional stalking. .... No I don't, I'm just saying that because it is better than watching the Paraguay v Japan match which - if you think being hit by a drop of water is bad - is horrendous.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Val30/6/10 03:05

    Sadly, it's the sort of thing that'd put my day off to a bad start too...!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Private30/6/10 04:03

    Oh, poor you! It sounds like a most traumatic experience!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous30/6/10 04:44

    Tragic, if not in the Aristotelian sense precisely. Actually I liked this story because there was NO BLOOD in it.

    Isabelle, not really Anon, but I'm at work.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fran Hill30/6/10 09:27

    Chris - if only I could see the blue skies, but there are so many flippin' hanging baskets around, blocking the view, it's a bit difficult!

    Loveable - you're right. Mind you, it's okay as long as you don't give them your sister to clean (are you reading, Sis?) and find that she's trying to clean them with a balsam-soaked tissue and smearing them to perdition.

    Rachel - you're right. They're okay while they're all pretty (just not drippy) but as soon as their day is done, why don't people take them down? Who wants to look at dead stuff?

    Moptop - you definitely win in the loopy stakes today, then.

    Linens - suing is a great idea. But if I lose ... that's a lot of chocolate money.

    June - you always know the right thing to say when I'm in real distress.

    SmitandSon - I've been trained by Friko - anytime I moan about anything, she just tells me to get on with it and stop whingeing. So I have to just push on through despite tragedy.

    Amanda - if you're going to laugh at me, at least PRETEND otherwise, for goodness' sake!

    Steve - that's a great comfort. I think. You may like to think about how the worm got up there in the first place.

    Alan - I see your point. I think I would rather have a hanging basket itself drop on me than watch Paraguay vs Japan, to be honest.

    Val - thank you for suffering with me. I appreciate this. As you can see from the other comments I've had, not everyone is so kind.

    Anonymous but really Isabelle - And very grateful I am too. If blood had dropped on me from that height, I would have jumped an awful lot higher.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Brigid O'Connor30/6/10 10:43

    Fran, real life is so tragic. you poor thing.

    It's the humiliation that is the worst to cope with.

    If it helps your humiliation, myself and my kids got berated by a granny on one of Dublins reknowned friendly streets today, and were told by her to 'come back into the city when you have learned to walk straight', hello, who's being messing with her medication? Never even realised we were crooked walkers.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Friko30/6/10 15:34

    Raindrops keep falling on your head . . . .

    See, if you'd taken the bus that wouldn't have happened to you.
    Changing one's routine is bound to cause problems.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Mark Kerstetter30/6/10 16:36

    That's nothing. One day I was riding my bike and a bird flew by and, yeah, crapped right on my head.

    ReplyDelete
  18. #1Nana30/6/10 22:04

    Are you sure it was from the planter? There weren't any birds flying overhead? I would not only have jumped, I would have squeeked too!

    ReplyDelete
  19. maggie30/6/10 22:09

    Dirty great globule was it. Well that's nothing how about having your hat blown off on one of those haven't washed my hair in umpteen days and have way too much product in it so that it doesn't even blow in the wind (yes that much product) and you're dreading trying to put the hat back on without a mirror just because you've not too self confident in looks department even though you know nobody really cares. How about that?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Deborah30/6/10 22:44

    Dear Much-Missed Me,

    I was feeling horribly, terribly sorry for you after reading this - so much so, in fact, that I had to go back and go through the whole experience a second time. Just to fully commiserate, ya know. Then I realized that it was only a DRIP that fell, and not the entire BASKET.

    So I've had to cut back on my condolences, but can still see how it could have been a bit upsetting. Seeing as how it was unexpected and all.

    But had it been the basket... well, I s'pose you wouldn't even be here writing about it.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anna May1/7/10 04:52

    Fran,

    A PollyAnnaMay thought - did you have to go home and change your (spotty) cardigan afterwards?

    Anna May x

    ReplyDelete
  22. CornFlowerFashion1/7/10 14:31

    Mrs Hill- you make me laugh ever-so-much :-)

    ReplyDelete
  23. Fran Hill2/7/10 10:20

    Brigid - isn't that JUST the most humiliating thing? I got told off by a woman recently when i didn't see her waiting to come into a shop and so she thought I'd just pushed past. 'How rude!' she said, and it took me three bars of chocolate to get over it.

    Friko - you're right. The bus is safer. As long as you don't take into account all the other passengers.

    Mark - That, indeed, is embarrassing. Why it's more embarrassing while cycling, I can't work out, but it does seem so.

    Nana - if it WAS bird poo, that bird's stomach needs seeing to by a vet.

    Maggie - I don't know why people wear hats. There seem to be so many opportunities for them to cause problems.

    Deborah - you seem to have undergone a rollercoaster of emotions on my behalf. It is much appreciated.

    Anna May - I wasn't wearing it that day. It's been in the wardrobe for a while, getting over its traumatic old lady experiences.

    Cornflower - that's the aim!

    ReplyDelete

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