I think it’s a bloke thing.
In case you’ve never noticed, I’m a natural helper. If something needs doing or someone needs help, I can’t help wanting to help.
So it was at the end of March.
I took my wife to the amazing hilltop Bolsover Castle for a trip out. You see it from the motorway, an imposing hilltop crenellated golden sandstone splendour, but we’ve never diverted from the road to visit before. On the way home, the motorway traffic came to a standstill, then crawled a bit, then standstill, etc.
As we reached the front of the blockage, it became suddenly clear, as it always does with these things, that there was a tyre in Lane 2 of the motorway, so everyone in Lane 1 was busy slowing and staring at it before moving on, everyone in Lane 2 suddenly found a large obstacle in front of them and had to indicate to move into lane 3 to get by, and everyone in lane 3 was having to let lane 2 merge.
So I thought, well, we are moving so slowly, I could just put on my hazards, slow down, stop, jump out, drag the tyre to the hard shoulder (because it was safe to do so: two lanes would be at a complete standstill) and then we could all just get on with life.
So that’s what I did.
I got a round of applause from the lorry driver behind me.
The only issues were that it was quite heavy, so in dragging the tyre to the edge of the road, I was pulling quite hard, crab-like as I dragged it sideways, and I put my foot down wrong and strained or sprained or twisted or otherwise hurt my ankle. I staggered slightly but just carried on.
And in fact, it wasn’t a tyre in the road, it was the tread of a lorry tyre which had ripped off at high speed as the tyre had burst, then re-formed into a circle as it came to rest. I got back in the car, drove off, and found I had lacerated my hand on the steel reinforcement shreds sticking out of the edge.
The lacerations took a bit of care to get to heal – one of them was clearly a bit deep – but I’ve still got a painful ankle that I’m at the point of needing to go through the faff of getting an "appointment " with my GP (or go to A&E directly, I don’t know which I need to do).
So the moral of the story is twofold:
- Blokes need to think about things before they wade into stuff, as TJ or Mike,
- Always do a proper assessment of the risks (or, carry some decent leather gloves in the car)!
But you have to try, don’t you? Hope this foolish tale brightens your day
Richard