I'm Feeling My Age

Fucking hell, I'm feeling my age. Two quick stories:

Story 1) When I was young, I had my breakfalls mastered. We were taught to let your instincts carry you through what you're doing now, giving you time to think what to do next. So we're on the road somewhere in America. Don't ask me where, I've no idea. And this other crew was trying to poach one of our crew members, which was a strict no-no on the road. So the crew jumped that night (left town) leaving me and a mate behind to sort out their manager when he came looking to pick up his new boy. The crew took my rottweiler with them, because the last thing we needed was to get him involved in ..... well, you get the picture.

So, we're sitting in this motel room somewhere in America waiting for this truck to show. We're expecting one truck, and I intended to give their manager a few slaps. But instead of one truck, five fucking trucks roll up full of crew members of this other crew. We knew we had our work cut out.

So, I walk straight up to the lead truck, which would obviously contain the manager. The geezer in the passenger seat had one of these cocky American I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass faces that you see on all the movies, so I punched his I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass face through his open window. Might as well get the first one in. Might be our last chance

But instead of jumping out, the manager floors it, gunning the accelerator and all five trucks are doing 90 mph through the motel car park.

Great, right? Except for one thing. The lead truck hooked the belt loop of my jeans and I'm being dragged along with it. I'm running my bollocks off! I think I passed Usain Bolt somewhere in the car park.

They must have thought, 'Fucking hell! This geezer's not giving up!' But I had no choice!

And it was about then that it happened. A nine inch square patch of denim was ripped from my jeans. The truck carried on, with my denim attached to it, and I'm catapulted forward at 90 mph!! I'm thrown head first to the ground at 90 mph and it was then that instincts took over .....

..... My right arm went over the back of my head to land on my left traps, thus protecting my head (the picture doesn't really show this very well), and as I went over I hit the ground on my right forearm in a forward roll and I came up standing on my feet in one smooth move.    

HOW FUCKING COOL WAS THAT!

Story 2) So, roll forward 40 years, and I'm mowing the lawn. I'm not as fit as I once was. I'm going backwards towards the corner of the patio, expecting to miss it .... but I didn't. I tripped over backwards, knocking the bird bath over, said 'Oh' as I fell, which was the toughest thing I could think of to say, and completely forgot all my breakfalls.

I hit the patio on my shoulder, bruising it, was thrown over and landed face down on the grass.

'Well,' I thought, as I lay there, 'I don't suppose that looked very hard, did it? What happened to my breakfalls?' 

Maybe you need to practice these things from time to time.

But imagine if I'd cracked my head open on the patio. They'd have probably called Social Services on my wife.

!