OK, here we go... I have yet again had the subject of today's Blog chosen for me. This time by my dear daughter, who told everyone on her Blog that I had once shot myself - And said that I would probably tell you all about it, as you seem to enjoy stories of my misfortunes.
Firstly, I'd like to take a few moments to look at the whole 'accidentally shooting yourself' issue.
Weaponry is a lot more widespread and more easily available over the pond, and as a large proportion (over 25%) of the visitors to this site hail from the Grande Olde US of A, I am expecting all kinds of safety advice is going through their heads right about now, and they're just itching to post it. I'll save some of them the trouble:
- Never play with a loaded weapon.
- Always make sure the weapon is unable to fire if you're cleaning it.
- Never point a weapon at yourself, loaded or not (You wouldn't believe the flak I got for my choice of Facebook Timeline image - Especially when they found out it was The Mini Dandy's hand, and the gun was actually pointed at my head - And when they saw that the safety was off... Well, it took them weeks to wind down)
- Never point a weapon at anything that you don't want to make go away. (And by 'Go Away' I mean, to shuffle off this mortal coil and join the choir invisibule)
People shoot themselves a lot more than you think, there's no end of stories of people shooting themselves in the foot, and losing fingers or being hit in the ass by a ricochet *cough* Mrs Dandy *cough* but you don't get many stories that pan out the way that mine did.
I'm hoping that this paticular story will act as a cautionary tale, but I'm also pretty sure it will make you laugh - I mean, who doesn't like to see over-confident idiots getting it really, really wrong and hurting themselves quite badly?
I know I do.
So, just sit back, relax, turn your schadenfreude dial up to eleven, and listen to the tale of:
The Day The Chimping Dandy shot himself.
It was only a few weeks after the events of Friday's Blog, still summer, still hot, still lazing around the house drinking beer and being irresponsible. These were the times that I refer to, in conversation, as 'The Good Old Days'. SMick and myself were sat, as was our custom at the time, in the front garden of my house enjoying the sunshine. We were drinking beer and thinking of things to do that were a) possible and b) within our somewhat limited budget. The list wasn't particularly extensive if I'm honest and it often contained the words beer, sun, nothing and more beer. And we were in grave danger of spiralling into another day, which whilst not exactly wasted, certainly wasn't turning out to be particularly productive.
Suddenly, the day took a turn for the... ah... well, not exactly better... More sort of... erm... odder, as Gullible Steve pulled up, got out of his car and asked us what we were up to. Steve's presence seemed to act as a catalyst and I decided, that rather than just lying in the sun all day, I'd do a bit of target practice.
Now, I wasn't drunk, as such... I mean I'd never, well not very often at least, I'd say it would be quite unlikely that I'd choose to handle a weapon of any kind whilst drunk - I'd at least think about it for a second or to before doing it anyway... Probably.
So, I suddenly found myself lying in front of my open garage door, on the bonnet of (somebody's) car, with my head on the windscreen, taking aim at the door into the house from the garage (which was a firedoor - I'd assumed that it was in some way 'toughened'). The first shot flew between my outstretched feet and took a decent sized chunk out of the back of the door - The noise was considerably louder than I thought it would be, the garage walls acting as an amplifier, to the point where I thought it might attract the attention of the neighbours. I decided that I'd take one more shot and then call it a day, before the Five-oh turned up.
I looked down the sight, lined up the centre of the door and sent the signal to my fingers to fire. Now, a number of things happened at the same time:
SMick shouted 'Steve!'
Steve, who had wandered into the garage to look at the damage I'd done to the door, moved into my field of view and started to bend down and pick up the chunk of wood that had detached itself.
I pulled my arm up and to the right to try and not shoot Steve in the head.
I fired.
Luckily, the shot went wide, but I still only missed Steve's head by about three inches. It took a fair chunk out of the brickwork around the doorframe and came straight back at me.
It hit me in the left forearm, and it bloody hurt - I've still got the scar, it's about three inches long and pretty feint, you have to bear in mind this was twenty-five years ago. Another thing to bear in mind was that my left arm was tight up against my chest, due to me lying on the bonnet of the car, so if I'd got hit four inches to the right, you wouldn't be reading this...
And then there's the other thing... Most of you reading this will have assumed that I was firing some sort of gun, possibly the .50AE in my timeline picture - This is not, however the case. I was using a 5' Flatbow and I had three feet of wood sticking out of my arm, Oh, yes, and I was holding the bow with my feet.
The arrow was removed in the traditional style, i.e. with uproarious laughter from everyone but Steve. And bandages were amateurishly applied.
Steve stayed frozen to the spot, bent almost double, for a good few minutes, and the garage floor stood silent testament to the fact that he'd been really, really scared.
So, now you know, you have a new story to tell your friends in the pub - about a guy who shot himself - With a bow and arrow (That he'd been holding with his feet).
(Feel free to pass any of the Blog stories on - If you think to credit me then that's be great, even if it's just 'There's this weird guy on the Internet called the Chunking Monkey or something and he did this really stupid thing')
Firstly can I congratulate my Daughter on starting her own Blog - Gods bless it and all who sail in it. Hopefully it will give you a somewhat skewed teenagers eye view of the Dandy Universe.
Important word of caution, whilst I am usually a good natured, happy go lucky kinda guy with an infinite amount of patience and startlingly good cheekbones, any sniff of abuse or unwarranted* unkindness towards her and I will, most definately, reach down the perpetrator's epiglottis and show them things that would normally only be available via x-ray.
-oOo-
Right, onto the job in hand.
We've all heard stories about people who've found wonderful things in the most unlikely of places. Antiques Roadshow is full of people who have found original Picasso sketches in their Aunt Mabel's loft or there are those despicable people who find an original, fully working, 1920's Brough Superior in a neighbour's garage which they buy for a fiver as 'It was our Derek's and he never used it, even when he was still alive'.
So, imagine my excitement, when everyone's favourite Chilli cook and professional Scotsman, my good friend SMick, arrived at my front door with news of a 'vehicle' that he'd found out about, just lying in the mud in a farmer's field just around the corner. It was, quite literally, just around the corner, as in those days you could spit the distance from my house to the wonderful British countryside - You had to check no-one was in the way of course, things like that didn't go down well with the residents' association, but a well-hawked loogey would land on grass, or in a tree, or on a sheep.
So, dutifully, I clamboured into his Peugeot and drove the 100 yards to the farm. I walked around to the outbuildings, through knee deep mud, in my white Status Quo style white hi-tops (It was around this time that I changed my footwear of choice to second-hand army boots) and said to SMick.
'OK, where is it?'
'There,' pointed SMick, proudly
'Where, is it behind that scabby P.O.S. Mk1 Transit Luton?'
The slow grin that swept across SMick's face told me all I really needed to know.
'You've got to be.. erm... flipping joking, I'll be in the car...' I said, and started to squidge away as fast as I could.
He convinced me that it would be a good idea, a nice little project, something to do during the day when the pubs were shut. And if we couldn't get it going, then the box on the back was aluminium (Not Al-OO-min-um) and we could weigh it in and get some money out of it.
I honestly cannot remember how we got it out of the field, I think I blocked it from my memory the same way that victims of alien abduction do, I'm fairly sure it involved lots of sheets of wood, many, many bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale and an almost Olympic quantity of swearing.
Eventually, it found itself on my drive. It didn't actually look all that bad with a large proportion of the mud washed off. It also turned out to have a V6 engine which was a bonus, which on it's own started a selection of trike/go-kart fantasies. After the battery was left on charge for about six weeks, the engine would succesfully turn over but not 'catch', dutifully we did what any men confronted with a failing engine would do, we stood staring at the engine and scratched our heads.
'I think the carb needs priming,' SMick suggested, sagely.
'Right you are, how do we do that?' I replied - I wasn't then the mechanical whiz that I'm still not now.
'Well, we just take the air filter off, put something flammable down the carbs and see if it will start then.'
'Flammable?' I asked, nervously, not quite liking where this was going, 'Like what?'
'Like... petrol!'
'Like petrol, or actually petrol?'
'Actually petrol, we've got petrol, and it's what you'd expect to find in the carb anyway, should be fine.'
I bowed to his greater knowledge and we poured, what turned out to be significantly too much, petrol into the top of the carburetor and turned the engine over.
Now, I've never seen a real giant lightsaber, but I can imagine it looking something like what came out of the top of the carb - a nine foot high column of flame and noise which existed just long enough to drive my eardrums into my rectum and blow my eyebrows over to the other side of the road - It's a good job, in hindsight that we'd taken the bonnet off else it would have bounced off it and cut a neat porthole in the garage door.
'I think we might scrap it,' Said Smick, batting at his still smouldering sweatshirt.
'What?' I shoulted as I was still mostly deaf and over the other side of the road looking for my left eyebrow.
Over the next few weeks we set about stripping down the van to its component parts. Many interesting and fun times were had during the project.
Do you remember when I talked about our friend 'Gullible' Steve? The gentleman who ate of the baby-carrot and rottweiler chilli? Well, a couple of incidents involved him:
1) He was stumbling about in the back of the van, seeing if there was anything of any worth amongst the rotting hay and mud. When there was a cry, a protracted coughing fit, a torrent of expletives directed at myself, SMick, life in general and birds in particular. I turned to SMick, who was sat next to me in a deck-chair and said,
'Didn't think to tell him about the nest full of rotten blackbird eggs we found yesterday then?'
'Nope,' replied SMick, taking another gulp of his beer. 'But I did put it right near the side door so we wouldnea forget to throw it in the bin.'
2) The roof of the Luton box was made of fibreglass, which is not as weigh-innable as aluminium sheet, so we asked Steve to have a go at taking it off. We assumed (Which taught me that you should never assume) that he would get a ladder, and maybe a saw and cut the roof off. But no, he clamboured up onto the roof with an axe and a hammer.
'Is that a good idea?' I asked SMick, knowing full well that it wasn't
'Idea? No... Opportunity to laugh? Yes.' He replied, reaching down into the crate for another beer.
It took him a good fifteen minutes to fall the eight feet or so into the back of the van as he smashed the roof our from under himself. Thinking about it now, we really should have thrown that blackbird nest in the bin.
I didn't remain completely unscathed through the project, I had countless fibreglass splinters pulled out of my arms with pliers, cuts, bruises and boo-boos of various kinds.
And I understand that SMick still bears the scar of his particular mishap. We had got to the stage of trying to flatten the aluminium enough to get it in the back of the car and take it to the scrapyard and SMick was belting away with a lump hammer at a piece of metal that he was stood on.
Well, he missed... And hit his shin... He went completely silent, looked at the group of grubby schoolchildren that were hanging around watching us, looked at me, said, very quietly,
'Excuse me.'
And went inside the house.
The flow of profanity lasted a good half an hour and featured words that I didn't think could be used in that particular context. It left seven local dogs paralysed down one side and a further three pregnant. He'll show you the scar now if you ask him nicely, it's quite impressive.
I'll never forget that summer - And neither will the person whose drive we dumped the burning remains of the van on.
Anywho, I've been informed that my Daughter has mentioned about the time I shot myself, maybe I'll tell you about that on Monday. Have a good weekend, and if you see me around, feel free to buy me a pint - I think I deserve it, I've had a hard life!
*There are times when my Daughter's Blog will warrant abuse, feel free to fill your boots in situations such as these.
This may suprise a few of you - But I am actually a fully fledged, licensed and notarised 'Door Supervisor' (What we all used to call a Bouncer).
In the dim and distant past, probably about twenty years ago, as I'd done some freelance bailiffing work, I would occasionally get accosted by the bouncers of local biker bars and clubs (Whom I'd known previously, I mean these guys didn't just spy my rippling biceps and go - 'He looks like he'd fill a doorway') and asked if I'd like to 'watch the door' whilst they stepped away from their posts for a bio break or to *cough* check some young lady's ID *cough*. This slowly evolved into me becoming one of those people that everyone hates - 'The guy who gets into places for free'. You'd rock up at the door of your venue of choice, the bouncer would ask 'Working?', I'd reply, 'Can do, if you're busy' and then there'd be some fist-bumping or that fist-handshake thing and I'd go and get a bottle of Dog and sit down for the rest of the night. The only proviso was that if things did kick off, you were seen to be in the front row, handing out righteous judgement with whatever blunt instrument came most readily to hand.
This very seldom happened if I'm honest as, contrary to popular opinion, biker bars (in the UK certainly) tend to be self policing, and also, bikers in general are a pretty good natured bunch - Visit one, you'll love it, but it's probably best not to wear a tie unless you like people pointing at you and laughing. (This does not apply if you're female and dressed as a schoolgirl, feel free to wear a tie then, although in fairness, you'll probably still get pointed at - Although it's unlikely to be with a finger.)
However, it all tailed off as things got more and more regulated, you started to need certification, you had to have a 'Little Blue Badge' issued by the local authorities, then the SIA (Security Industry Authority) got involved and it all went to hell in a handcart... Bouncers became Doormen, then Door Supervisors, the bats and socks full of pennies got replaced by politeness and psychology and it became 'safe'... OK, let's qualify that bit, I mean it became safer for the punter. You were significantly less likely to wake up in a ditch, looking at a selection of your own bodily fluids, wondering why you could see the back of your own head. It was no safer for the guy in the monkey suit saying 'I'm sorry sir, not tonight, try again next week' as the local authorities had not seen fit to regulate the behaviour of drunks to the same extent, it was still quite acceptable for them to lash out with glasses and broken WKD bottles and whatever else they carried about their persons.
I thought myself to be well out of, for want of a better word, you could describe as 'A mug's game' and settled down to a life of comfort, videogames and beer. That is of course until my wife commented that I should probably 'Do something in my spare time', it seems that sitting, drinking beer and playing games aren't 'something' as far as the current Mrs Dandy is concerned. I took this to heart, and within a couple of months I was offered a place on a Door Supervisor training course - Spooky!
Our instructor was a little Scots fella, who had been invalided out from 3 Para after (IIRC) smashing both of his legs (or arms) to pieces after a faulty parachute deployment - And he was, without doubt, the most double-hard b*st*rd that I have ever had the honour to meet. He would merrily go through the official SIA Door Supervisors Training Handbook with us, then slam it shut and say 'Tammorae, I'll tich ya poufters whae ya rally need tae knae'
And he did... We learned what bits to poke, where to chop or twist, how fast, how hard and how long for - In fairness, he did preface every demonstration with 'An ya shoul' ne'er do thas, but ye'll nee' to knae how to defen agin it' - It was the first time I ever saw anyone use the 'sleeper hold' to it's natural conclusion and also the first time I saw a guy who was probably only 5'5" subdue a guy around a foot taller, one handed. (It should be noted that the big fellah wasn't just tall, he was probably about 300lbs and has once been sacked for knocking someone out with a live chicken - He works for the BBC now I think, or at least he did the last time I met him)
And he also HATED first aid training, don't get me wrong, he still taught it, and taught it well, but his opinion was that it made you soft and you'd worry about hurting someone if you thought you might have to fix them again afterwards. To this end, he organised a bit of 'role play' the day after the first aid training. He set the classroom up to mimic a darkened nightclub layout and slumped one of our number in the corner, then he let us in, one at a time and told us that it was the end of the night and the rest of the club was clear, 'Whad'ye dae?' Of course, we were all still in 'Helpful First Aider' mode, we checked for breathing and conciousness and stuff and went to help, whereupon the guy opened his eyes, brought an empty syringe from behind his back, and stabbed us in the neck, 'Yer deid, if ya lucky, it wae jus drogs, if ya wea onlucky it wea infected blod, if ya wae rilly onlucky it whuz jus' full o' air !' he cried, with more than a little glee - The only guy who passed this test was the one who he'd put in the sleeper hold - Maybe it focuses the mind?
I've used it a couple of times since, even done security for bands and suchlike. All in all, a pretty great experience, people who are interested in self defence should definately look into it - I've taught a lot of what I learned to my daughter, and will be doing the same when my son's a little older - So that's something for the next generation of bullies to look forward to.
