» Bad Smells

Speaking of septic tanks
Many years ago, the Achtungmeinfield family lived out in the sticks, and the house we lived in came equipped with a septic tank. Twas a very old septic tank, with a brick lining. For the first year, we had to have the bloody thing emptied about once every 6 months, for reasons my father could not understand. Yes, he had three vigorous sons who ate him out of house and home, but still. That's an awful lot of shite. Now we lived about halfway down a hill, and there were about a dozen houses uphill of our gaff. And they never seemed to have the problem we did.

Right until we happened to dig up, divine the purpose of, and subsequently block with concrete, the seemingly communal pipe that linked the overflow from all their septic tanks to ours. Before long, if the wind was right, the stink of badly backed-up septic tanks was all too apparent, and some of our neighbours had started to take on increasingly haggard expressions. Word was there had been some unpleasantness, stuff like flushing the bog causing all manner of effluent to boil up out of the kitchen sink plug. As concerned neighbours, we were only too delighted to give them the number of a nice firm who would empty out their bastarding motherfucking freeloading septic tanks for them.

As for our tank - one day, Dad's tame builder and his oppo were peering into the manhole cover over the old tank, poking inside with a long pole to check the integrity of the brickwork. Much sucking of teeth, "Looks like you'll need a new one, amateur put this one in, happy to quote you, gonna be a few quid mind, etc". Right then, the wall they'd been prodding collapsed, causing a wave of the most heinous pong to well up out of the manhole cover, right into their faces. I was standing a good way off, so it might have been the distance, but it didn't half look like the builder puked up not only the contents of his stomach, but his entire gastric tract.
(Wed 22nd Jan 2014, 21:44, More)

» Self-Inflicted injuries

Eary ouchy woe
Many many years ago, when I were young, daft and fit as a butcher's dog, I used to cycle everywhere.
One fateful night, having finished a late shift portering at the local hospital, I was cycling home. I had an appointment with a beer at my local, so was not hanging around. Now chez Achtungmeinfield is in a village, way out in the sticks, so the last couple of miles of my journey home were down unlit tiddly country lanes.
Because I was skint/stupid/whatever, I tended to ride without lights if there was enough moonlight to see by, as it added to the atmos. Handily, this night, I had found a car to follow down said country lanes, so its headlights were providing lots of useful illumination for me as I pedalled like a bastard, keeping up with it.

Now one section of the ride home is a looong downhill stretch, so I and my beneficent companion were travelling at a rare old rate of knots at the point where I took a right turn to join another even teenier country lane that took me home, also unlit. The car, however, didn't turn right. He carried on down the hill. Also he took his headlights with him. Which meant that I suddenly found myself hurtling at great speed,with no night vision, completely blind, down this hedge-lined country lane.

Time did its usual thing of slowing down in these situations, so I vividly remember out of the blackness an area of even blacker blackness looming up at me, identifying it as a hedgerow, thinking "Oh fu.." BLAM

Shortly afterwards I came to, prone in the middle of the road. Managed to stagger up and grab the pushbike but, night vision now returned, it became obvious that the thing was fucked and I'd have to stagger the rest of the way home on foot. At that point I also felt something dripping down the right side of my neck, so I reached up to feel what was going on at the side of my head. As I did so, with my fingertips encountered a piece of warm, sticky flesh about an inch further away from my skull than I would normally expect to find any flesh. Eeek. My ear. Need to get home, like sharpish.

I threw the cycle to one side and proceeded to totter the rest of the way home. A couple of cars came by and I desperately tried to flag them down but, for some reason, they were't that keen on stopping for some mad swivel-eyed loon,covered in blood and with his ear hanging off.

Finally got home, pounded on the door. When my brother answered, his mouth went a funny O shape, and his face lost a couple of shades of colour. Youngest sister came galloping up to see what the fuss was about. Some vomiting happened.

Carted off to local A&E, where all were suprised to see me back so soon. Carted off to East Grinstead to have all it sewn back on again and all the gravel carefully removed. Scar? You betcha.

TL;DR Knobhead totals pushbike in the dark, skids along the road on his head, rips large chunk of ear off in the process.
(Tue 3rd Dec 2013, 13:22, More)