Alas, I Am Undone
Oct. 26th, 2003 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtle(Or, Everything That Rises Does Not Converge)
(This happened Thursday, and I haven't gotten around to writing about it until now. Not that Thursday, or the time since then, has really been all that newsworthy. Arguably, I have too much time on my hands, if I've been so preoccupied by a struggle with my own trousers.)
So, there I was, minding my own business. It was 10:15 on a Thursday morning, so my employers might have been expecting me to mind their business, but there is a certain quiet understanding that lavatories are private space. I was in a stall, quietly cursing the clever people who make "Burt's Bees Res-Q Ointment." (This was somewhat out of character for me, as it's marvelous stuff. Most herbal remedies for bruises contain alcohol, and warn that they are not to be used on broken skin. As if whatever caused bruises wasn't liable to break skin.) Anyhow, for whatever reason, these clever people package their ointment in a little tin, and I had been carrying it around in various pockets for most of the week. Sometimes I even had the presence of mind to use it. Thursday at 10:15, I discovered that I couldn't open it.
I tried prying it with my knifeblade, and scraped off a fair amount of enamel. I tried to grip it with the exposed elastic inside one of my socks. As I got up, grumbling, to go in search of more effective tools...the zipper on my pants came unhinged. (So to speak. It would be more accurate to say it jumped the track, but I was starting to feel a bit unhinged.) I stood there for quite a while, wrestling with my pants, trying to put the zipper back together, but I couldn't make it go.
This is exactly the wrong morning's activity for someone with chronic hand pain. I was in tears. But I was feeling so overwhelmed and humiliated by the whole idea of not being able to zip my own pants that it was very difficult for me to give up and leave the bathroom. (Even though any *public* humiliation would only be the 90 seconds it took me to find a lab coat...though some of my colleagues might not notice if I were wearing trousers at all, let alone details like zippers.) I went to the lab for some needlenose pliers and screwdrivers to use as mini-prybars, then back to the stall for zipper repair.
After an extensive struggle, I could *almost* get the zipper threaded. Over, and over, and over. The foot of the zipper wouldn't go into the zipper pull without some kind of lubrication. The Res-Q Ointment in my pocket, being largely almond oil and beeswax, would be perfect for the job (despite smelling strongly of lavender and comfrey.) If only I could get it out of the tin. It was now almost 11, and my right hand was almost entirely useless with the accumulated strain (not that it's ever particularly useful.) I buttoned my lab coat, and went to the lab for the tin snips.
I got the tin open, only dropping it twice, not dropping the tin snips at all. Fortunately, this is not a new record. The waxed end of the zipper could be forced into the zipper pull with the screwdriver and wedged shut, and compelled to function as a zipper along about 60% of its usual, now oddly herbal-smelling, path. While I was at it, I applied the Res-Q Ointment as I had originally intended, before putting what remained in a plastic sample container from the lab, to bring home.
(This happened Thursday, and I haven't gotten around to writing about it until now. Not that Thursday, or the time since then, has really been all that newsworthy. Arguably, I have too much time on my hands, if I've been so preoccupied by a struggle with my own trousers.)
So, there I was, minding my own business. It was 10:15 on a Thursday morning, so my employers might have been expecting me to mind their business, but there is a certain quiet understanding that lavatories are private space. I was in a stall, quietly cursing the clever people who make "Burt's Bees Res-Q Ointment." (This was somewhat out of character for me, as it's marvelous stuff. Most herbal remedies for bruises contain alcohol, and warn that they are not to be used on broken skin. As if whatever caused bruises wasn't liable to break skin.) Anyhow, for whatever reason, these clever people package their ointment in a little tin, and I had been carrying it around in various pockets for most of the week. Sometimes I even had the presence of mind to use it. Thursday at 10:15, I discovered that I couldn't open it.
I tried prying it with my knifeblade, and scraped off a fair amount of enamel. I tried to grip it with the exposed elastic inside one of my socks. As I got up, grumbling, to go in search of more effective tools...the zipper on my pants came unhinged. (So to speak. It would be more accurate to say it jumped the track, but I was starting to feel a bit unhinged.) I stood there for quite a while, wrestling with my pants, trying to put the zipper back together, but I couldn't make it go.
This is exactly the wrong morning's activity for someone with chronic hand pain. I was in tears. But I was feeling so overwhelmed and humiliated by the whole idea of not being able to zip my own pants that it was very difficult for me to give up and leave the bathroom. (Even though any *public* humiliation would only be the 90 seconds it took me to find a lab coat...though some of my colleagues might not notice if I were wearing trousers at all, let alone details like zippers.) I went to the lab for some needlenose pliers and screwdrivers to use as mini-prybars, then back to the stall for zipper repair.
After an extensive struggle, I could *almost* get the zipper threaded. Over, and over, and over. The foot of the zipper wouldn't go into the zipper pull without some kind of lubrication. The Res-Q Ointment in my pocket, being largely almond oil and beeswax, would be perfect for the job (despite smelling strongly of lavender and comfrey.) If only I could get it out of the tin. It was now almost 11, and my right hand was almost entirely useless with the accumulated strain (not that it's ever particularly useful.) I buttoned my lab coat, and went to the lab for the tin snips.
I got the tin open, only dropping it twice, not dropping the tin snips at all. Fortunately, this is not a new record. The waxed end of the zipper could be forced into the zipper pull with the screwdriver and wedged shut, and compelled to function as a zipper along about 60% of its usual, now oddly herbal-smelling, path. While I was at it, I applied the Res-Q Ointment as I had originally intended, before putting what remained in a plastic sample container from the lab, to bring home.
