I'm far too sensible for a Darwin
...as I'm sure you'll all readily agree. But there was one morning about five years ago...

It was one of those really busy weeks at work when putting in 110% effort could get you noticed enough to make a difference. I'd been getting in at 7.30am and leaving around 7.00pm in the evening since Monday and it was now Thursday. Spending twelve hours a day hunched over a keyboard had given me a hefty dose of back-ache and I'd spend ten minutes lying on the floor when I got in from work. Anyway, Thursday morning I'd set the alarm for 5.45am and dragged myself out of bed before six. I was down in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and decided to stretch my back. We had (still have actually) a tall kitchen stool, and I was sitting atop it, feet on one of the cross-bars and I decided to lean forward as far as I could to ease my poor back.

If you'd been there watching, you would have seen me slowly topple forward as the stool over-balanced. I was unaware of this as the motion was slow and I thought it was just blood rushing to my head, so I didn't move or protect myself but hit the stove, crown-of-the-head-first as I tumbled from the stool to land in a pile on the kitchen floor with a stool on top of me. Unluckily for me, I'd managed to hit the oven door handle on the way down and it had caused a two-inch gash just above my forehead. The first I knew about this was seeing the copious amounts of blood dripping down off my nose onto the floor as I stumbled to my knees.

I ever so gently woke Mrs G (by bawling up the stairs: "Help! I'm bleeding! Help me!") who summoned an ambulance. As they took a look at my bonce while I was sitting in the back of the ambulance, they asked me how it happened, and somehow seemed unconvinced by my honest account, preferring to believe that Mrs G had spanged me with a fryingpan.

I got into work a bit late that morning to zero sympathy.

I've still got the scar, in fact each year, as my hairline recedes further, it becomes more visible.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 15:40, 1 reply)

That sounds like 150% effort
And it's never appreciated, as I've learned over the years.
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 20:25, closed)