There Are Ways Around Every Hassle

Six Word Photo Story: Freestyle

Repeating the problem provides the solution.

Last week, I fell in the garden. I was hanging out the first washing of the year that stood a chance of drying on the line in our shaded coastal garden.

I placed the plastic tub I use as a washing basket on the dewy grass, lifted a garment, reached for the line, and pegged it in place.

Lulled into a false sense of security, I made the same movements again. Except my fingers missed the line, and then the line was moving right in my vision as I was moving left. Like a cartoon character with a surprised look on its face, I went down sideways, quietly thinking This is going to hurt, and bounced on my shoulder and hip. Then the world shifted a bit. Which is kind of neat, because usually the world shifts first.

I have benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, thanks to two Pfizer/BioNtech vaccines and an annual influenza vaccine reacting to them five months after the second P/B dose. My mild tinnitus, courtesy of sub-clinical hypothyroidism, has developed into a subdued roar of white noise, and the vertigo followed. The doctor’s provided exercises proved to be… you don’t want the details. But we learn to live with such hassles.

And there are always solutions to new hassles if the sequence of events is repeated slowly and with thought. A piece of old washing line now acts as a line-pull (hanging right of the green peg-bag), and a plastic garden chair acts as a riser for the washing basket. Minimal reaching and bending. Today it worked a treat.

Result!

Thanks to Mary Chang Story Writer for the publication, and do check out other writers for no-hassle stories to make you smile: Dennett, Elin Melaas, Penny Grubb, Ellie Jacobson, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, and Susan Alison.