Klutzville

“I’m going to write a blog about all the times I’ve been a klutz,” I told Barnard one Saturday, as we were cleaning up the aftermath of my latest mishap.

“It may need to be a series,” he replied drily, before quickly retreating out the back door and into his man cave.

I know what you’re thinking: How rude. But my propensity for ineptness cannot be denied.

On this occasion, I had managed to set the microwave alight. I’d been making toast and, as we’d run out of Olivani spread, I decided to use butter instead. I took a hard chunk of tinfoil-wrapped butter out of the fridge and popped it into the microwave to soften it, blithely forgetting that metal and microwaves do not mix. Nek minnit: Flames.

“Do something!” barked The Hapless One, as I stood and stared at the pretty orange flames licking the microwave ceiling. Do what? Pick up the butter and burn my hands? Open the microwave door and feed the fire with oxygen? Did I mention I’m not just a klutz, but an over-thinker?

The Clever One whipped on the oven gloves before dumping the burning butter into the sink. Somehow I found the wherewithal to pour water on it. Crisis averted.

“These things always happen to you,” Barnard has said several times. Once, I had just returned home from a beginner’s yoga class with a very sore chest and a sharp pain whenever I took a breath. Doctor Google told me it was probably a cracked sternum.

“I’ve cracked my sternum,” I told the dog.

“Woof,” he replied.

“It’s unlikely you’ve cracked your sternum,” the kind nurse at the Featherston Medical Centre told me over the phone. “You’ve probably just bruised a rib.”

And how, I hear you ask, does someone bruise a rib in a beginner’s yoga class?

Easy. After watching the instructor demonstrate how to do a shoulder stand, you lie on your back, place your hands on your lower back for support, and lift both legs high into the air. At which point you lose your balance and watch your legs roll awkwardly back over your head, as your body tips sideways to meet the floor. The only positive thing to be said about your new, very un-Lotus-like position is that you cannot see the faces of your sniggering classmates.        

And then there was the hedge.

Our garden was so overgrown before Christmas that it was at risk of being logged as a healthy and safety risk by the council, so we decided to have a clean-up. Barnard watched me hack away somewhat successfully at some large shrubs that had grown over a path, before handing me the electric hedge clippers and suggesting I give it a go.

Woo hoo. I am woman, hear my clippers roar. I was instantly transformed into the incredible gardening hulk, dispensing with any and all vegetation in my path. There’s a low hedge surrounding one of our garden beds, and it was looking very messy. I applied the chainsaw to it with gusto, becoming increasingly fired up as I slashed through the branches with all the might and power of a 5’3” woman in her 50s.

There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned off the chainsaw.

“It’s looking a bit crooked,” said The Wise One.   

It was only then I realised I had turned the previously level hedge top into an undulating countryside of elevated peaks and cavernous valleys. It’s taking months to grow back.   

But unbelievably, I would not rate that experience as the most humiliating of my klutzy moments. No, that would be falling flat on my face in the middle of the street. More than once. More times than I can count, in fact. But enough times that one of my knees bears a permanent evidential scar.

I’d love to be able to say that these incidents were the result of an unexpected obstacle, like a rock or an uneven surface. But each time I got up, brushed myself off and checked the footpath for hazards, there were none whatsoever. All I can say in my defence is that there was a noticeable increase in these incidents after I went through “the change”, AKA: menopause. So can I blame it on hormones, then? I know what you’re thinking: Just watch where you’re walking next time. Thank you, dear reader.

Being an over-thinker, it’s tempting to spend hours wondering if I really am more of a klutz than the average person. But life is short, so instead I think I’ll just pop into town and buy some new oven gloves to replace the ones Barnard burned. It was all his fault.