Hung Up On You
Did I tell you about the time I got stuck to my desk chair?
Literally.
Stuck.
What’s worse is that a client had just requested some of my time by e-mail, and I responded by typing the following: “Call me any time tomorrow afternoon. I will be chained to my desk trying to get something done.”
I did not mean for this desk chaining to happen, but alas, I’m me, and therefore, it did.
Procrastinating Concentrating feverishly on work, my parched throat craved a glass of water. When I tried to stand up, I couldn’t. My hook lashed itself to the back of my mesh chair and was stuck there like a shrieking demon dragging a soul into the flaming pit of hell.
Trying to stand up meant dragging the chair with me in an awkward dance of gawkiness. No matter how I contorted myself, I couldn’t reach the hook. First, I tried one hand and then the other, wrenching my neck in the process. If I moved forward, the mesh came with me, the hook twisting at varied angles such that I could never tell exactly WHICH way it should point to disengage. I tried using both hands at once, and couldn’t grab anything at all.
For almost ten minutes, I reached, stretched, strained, struggled, cursed, swore, screamed, pulled, wiggled, mashed, pretzeled, and pushed the sodding hook. I think my entire life flashed before my eyes during those few minutes of my intense groping clumsiness.
Sweaty and still attached, I had one final dreaded thought – I was going to have to call MTM at work to come and dislodge the stupid thing. And, he was going to laugh at me for days and days and days.
All because I typed the phrase “chained to my desk.”
Oh, to be so attached to my work that it would take Madonna to get me up and dancing.
I’m not a big Madonna fan, but it fit the post.
Weird Al, on the other hand………
I LOVE THIS SONG. I forgot it was Weird Al. I so imagine poor Andra turning into poor Jimmy over the course of the song. I went and saw Weird Al in concert last year. He can put on a SHOW. So awesome.
Rerun! I detect a rerun!! We have heard this story! We want new stories – like the one about the farmer’s dog who at the $20 bill but would pass it….
I acknowledged my repost status at the bottom, Carnell. I needed a laugh, even if it was at my own expense.
And, I cannot possibly do justice to my father’s jokes. They are in a class unto themselves, and they only work when he tells them. You were lucky to have that experience firsthand.
And, I hope Eugene’s arm has finally recovered from Dad’s hitting it so many times………….
Maybe if Scott’s BBQ open in Charleston, your dad will come down. Or maybe he would come down for a Cootchie Mama Open House?!
Dad doesn’t much care for Charleston. Too much water. No TV in my house.
I’m sure glad I chose a leather chair rather than mesh.
And just a word about yesterday’s beautiful story about Cayleigh, awww!
I’m wearing a dress of similar construction today, Howard, and I have to remind myself to not get caught in the back of my chair………
Ha! I’ve done so myself, Andra. A long skirt. I rolled over the wheel and the hem rolled with it, the chair rolling behind me – much to the amusement of my office mates.
Oh no, Penny! I hope it didn’t pull the skirt down or anything. Did you survive unscathed?
http://www.myspace.com/video/ginobeats-central-com/sweet-sensation-hooked-on-you-new-version-high-quality/40151471
My, Robert. That song is a blast from my shellacked hair past. I haven’t heard that one in ages. I shall serenade my chair with it today………
I would have ripped the outfit, or the chair apart. I get freaked out when something constricts me and I freak out…seriously…I’ve ripped a few outfits trying to escape. Ha. Just reading what you went through I started to feel panicky.
Glad you got out without having to call MTM to the rescue. 
I started to take the dress off, Lori, and that’s when it popped away from the chair. Just imagine, me standing there half-in and half-out of my clothes, unable to move from my chair……….horrible.
I’ve gotten to the point in life where I often need help getting either zipped up or down from my dress. It seems my reach isn’t what it used to be. I laughed at my mom when that would happen to her, never realizing I would one day face the same problems! I’ve also become so lazy that I don’t use the hooks and eyes anymore, praying that the zipper will somehow magically stay put.
There’s a yoga pose I try to do for that one, Jill. It might help you, and it’s easy to do. Here it is.
http://myfiveminuteyoga.com/496/five-minute-yoga-challenge-ease-your-shoulders-in-gomukhasana/
OK, how did you get free? Did you have to call in the MTM reinforcements?
No. I started unzipping my dress, and it magically detached.
I’ve done what Penny did! I survived, but the skirt was never the same.
My more panicky moments occur when my fingers swell and won’t allow me to remove a ring….. It’s always fine as soon as I stop struggling and remember to hold my fingers straight up and/or apply a bit of soap and water or hand lotion.
The swelling problem hits me too, Karen. When I walk the bridge, I always have to take the thing off beforehand, or it won’t come off for hours after.
Ah, these times when clothes and chairs hijack us! I would swear it is a conspiracy amongst clothiers. On my way to my graduation a stiletto got caught in a pavement crack and when these things lodge – like your hook – there is no redemption. And there is merriment amongst all who behold it.
Stiletto at graduation? You are a brave soul, Kate. I’ve only worn stilettos once for a public outing. Visions of tripping and falling head first down the stairs would assault me at every turn.
Glad you reposted. I had not seen that one, and you are too funny. I have never seen anyone get snagged on a chair. And I’ve been around a lot of cubicle peeps. Love the Madonna video. Fits perfectly!
Leave it to me to figure out how to do something next-to-impossible in the clumsy department…..
I’m sorry that I just must say this, Andra, but “Only You!” Hilarious in the telling…not so hilarious when you’re the one chained! D
Even I have to laugh at these things now, Debra.
It’s just like the time I got stuck in a school chair when I was 4. The teacher couldn’t get me out, so she brought in the other teacher, and her class. After the trauma of 60 people looking at me, stuck, I have no idea of how I actually escaped.
What a memory, Fiona. I’m glad one of them finally helped you, which must’ve happened.
Oh, those little hooks are sneaky and evil. Hard to hook when you want them to, and then the stuff they hook to you that you don’t want? Awful.
You’re absolutely right. I cannot get them to work when I need them.