My New Hands

Sorry I've been away from the keyboard for so long, but I had a rather unfortunate accident at work.

As some of you know, I work part-time as a lion tamer with a local circus and often end an act by putting my head into the mouth of Leo, the largest and most ferocious of all the lions. The audience love it and it usually goes down a treat; but last week something went wrong.

As I removed my head, I felt a strange nakedness on my face and realised to my horror that my spectacles were missing; they must have dropped off and fallen down Leo's throat!

Now, those glasses have been in my family for over three generations and I wasn't about to lose them down an animal's gullet, King of the Jungle or otherwise. So I immediately plunged both my hands down the creature's throat to try and recover the aforementioned optical aids.

I don't know if it was the specs tickling his throat or my hands going down in hot pursuit that did it, but Leo suddenly took it upon himself to become Mr Awkward and clamped his teeth together as hard as he could, severing both my hands in the process.

I had a few choice expletives to say to him, I can tell you, as I looked at the stumps of my arms with the blood pumping out of them.

I tried to open his mouth to get my hands back, but he wasn't having any of it. I don't know if you've ever tried to prise open the jaws of an angry lion, but it's not as easy as you think it will be, especially if you've got no hands.

After having no luck in recovering my hands, I decided to go to the ringmaster and complain. He wasn't very sympathetic; his opinion was that it was all part of the job.

Nevertheless, he did agree to phone the hospital for me to see if they had any spare hands. I'm glad he did because it happened that they were expecting a hand delivery that very week.

They were as good as their word, and a few days later I had the new hands fitted on. They're rather large compared to the rest of my body and a bit too bright green for my taste, but beggars can't be choosers as they say.

On the plus side, it turns out that the hand donor was an accomplished pianist, so I've been able to entertain my friends around the Old Johanna of an evening.

More negatively, apparently he was hanged for being a being a serial killer and I've had trouble with the hands trying to strangle me in my sleep or even sometimes during the day.

This can happen at some embarrassing moments; earlier this week I went for a job at the local bank (having decided that lion taming isn't for me), and I'm sure that the sight of me rolling on the floor screaming while the oversized green hands grasped at my throat didn't impress the interview panel. I wasn't surprised when I got the letter telling me I'd been unsucessful on this occasion. You can ask them for feedback and get more specific reasons for their refusal, but I don't think I'll bother.

Anyway, apart from those blips the hands are working nicely. Now I've taught them to type in English and not Ukranian, I'm hoping to return to blogsville with immediate effect.

I got my glasses back, by the way. They're covered in lion dung but better than nothing. As for my original hands, they're back too, but I can't be bothered with changing them again. So, if you know of anybody who wants a pair of hands smelling of lion poo, please let me know. Genuine enquiries only please.

I'm telling this story so that anybody in a similar position can take hope from my experience.

All's well that ends well.