Malevolent bed clothes

Sunday Blog 98 – Sunday 20th August 2023 (It’s still Sunday in Frankfurt!)

He was trying very hard to be diplomatic, in the face-to-face interview he was conducting with me for my final recruitment process to become a shelf stacker at Woolies. This was in 2022, when I was still trying to get the right balance between earning enough money and retaining enough time to write. It was just after I had finished some consultant work which then took up all my writing bandwidth. Which defeated the purpose of me quitting the day job to finish the damn book. Shelf stacking seemed the ideal solution.

I had sailed through the earlier recruitment stages but at the interview he gently pointed out that perhaps my CV didn’t reflect a very – ahem – physically active job history. Being a non-profit health leader has its challenges and requirements, but physical strength is not one of them. Wisely he told me to sleep on the decision. Overnight the scales fell from my eyes. I rang him to decline. On reflection, shelf-stacking wasn’t quite the answer to my conundrum of having enough regular income without ending up working too hard to actually get the writing done.

Yes, my work experience has not usually put me at physical risk. Over my career, Work Health and Safety presentations were often a slightly painful and embarrassing effort from the presenter to think about likely hazards at work – a paper cut perhaps or a stapler accident. Not that I am trying to make light of the topic. There can be very unsafe workplaces from a mental health perspective.

I guess I am thinking more about the very risky work some people undertake where a lapse of judgement can have catastrophic consequences. I have never worked in one of these.

In fact, I am always inclined to ease whenever I can. So this week, I returned to bed after making a morning cup of tea, feeling very grateful and excited that I could snuggle in to do some editing. Only my ring finger somehow became caught up in my bedclothes, twisting the knuckle in a way it wasn’t supposed to. Darling husband had already left to go cycling but returned for something just at the point where I was still groaning in pain and thinking I might vomit just a little. He couldn’t quite fathom how such a sedentary position could cause any harm. Darned malevolent bedclothes.

The finger began to swell (and bruise ever so slightly) over the next few days. To the point I thought I would have to google the detergent and fishing line method of removing a wedding ring from swollen fingers.

But the gentle emergency receded without further incident. But I have been warned. Bedclothes can be dangerous!