Hello and welcome to Storytime Sunday; that day of the week where I detail the story of how I earned yet another of the countless strange nicknames I have.
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| This could be the weirdest thing I've used in a header image so far... Well. First time for everything. :D |
Have you ever done something so incomprehensibly silly, that the only reaction for both yourself and those around you, was to laugh? Probably. People do stupid things all the time. In my case though, it was bad enough that some of the fairer humored individuals took to calling me Plugless afterwards. Quite the story actually.
If you've read some of the articles that I post on this blog, such as the fantastic idea I had of jumping off of a almost 2 story high platform of sorts, you'll understand that I have a certain propensity towards ill thought out decisions, often in the name of spontaneous fun. While perhaps not always a bad thing, this does sometimes lead to strange situations such as today's topic, how I came to be known as Plugless.
Just less than 3 years ago from today, I had just become a leader (prefect) at my High School, and was, alongside the rest of the leader body, tasked with helping to get the school into a condition that would allow for the marking of that years Matric Examination papers to proceed without an issue. This also involved the assistance of running a small shop which was to provision the South African teachers marking said papers with food and drinks so that their job could pass by with less hassle.
So here's the fun. For some reason, South African teachers are coke addicts. (Not that coke... The stuff you drink. On a side note, I've tried sniffing coke before. The bubbles kept tickling my nose.) In any case, running this shop passed by with relative ease apart from the near constant demand for cans of Coca-Cola. The shop had set up a massive metal bin which was filled with water and ice in order to keep the cans cool as they were sold nearly as quickly as they were put in.
The problem with such a setup of course, is that the freshest cokes were always placed into the tub on top, and the oldest ones were to be found at the bottom of said metal container... by the rubber plug which held the frigid contents in their watery suspension. So of course Murphy's law dictates that at the end of the day when there is no longer a supply of ice to further cool more drinks, I knocked the infernal plug out of the drain.
Allow me to place this into perspective. This bin was tall enough to reach over your average persons hips, and deep enough that placing your arm in, your shoulder would be submerged if you placed your hand flat against the base. So there I was, innocently searching for a cold coke, when the sudden splatter of water on the ground gives away what I've done, and seeking to preserve the now more precious supply of cold water for the remaining drinks, I quickly weighed my options.
There was no way to refill the bin, and no alternative plug, and after frantically brushing my hands about the bottom for 30 seconds, I decided that the only remaining option was to sacrifice my own limbs to frostbite in the name of preserving the precious commodity that was cold water. (I should point out that almost 3 years later, I'm still laughing at how ridiculous this sounds.) Placing one hand over the drain to prevent leakage, I stood with my arms up to my shoulders in icy water with my behind dangling over the edge of the bin as if I was bobbing for apples.
If you're wondering how funny that looked, one of the school teachers accompanying the leaders with this job spotted this and asked what I was doing, only to break out into non-stop laughter for 5 minutes when I told her; while I continued to desperately find the rubber plug beneath all the cans of drinks with my remaining arm. Good times.
Thankfully, as luck would have it, I eventually managed to find the rubber plug and pulled my now shinning pink arms from the water. If I'd seen that colour on a hunk of meat I would have called it pork most likely. And it hurt... a lot. Thankfully, this was during the spring so they warmed up quick enough. As an added bonus, the still cackling teacher decided to thereby dub me "Plugless", hero of the cooldrink bin from there onward. In good humor of course. Still, what a sight my round bottom over the edge of that tub must have been. (Teehee)
In any case, since then, Plugless has been one of the many strange nicknames that I am known by. Still not quite as strange as "Dr. Unikorn" though. In any case, if you think that Plugless suits me as a nickname, or perhaps just want to let me know how stupid you think I am, make sure to do so in the comments below; and make sure to share this with any of your friends who appreciate stories of people doing things that make no sense. Everyone likes a good laugh. And of course, if you would like to read more stories like these, make sure to like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter using the associated button on the bar to the right so that you can get the latest articles as I post them. Regardless of what you do however, I thank you for taking the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.
Fare Footing (and solidly held plugs) in your travels.
