So my hands have been dry and cracked lately and someone suggested I sleep with Sorbolene soaked socks on my hands I was suddenly & horrifically reminded of a long repressed memory from my early childhood…
I must have been about 5 and I was out shopping with Mum. I was dressed in my usual outfit, Spider-man, and I was swinging all over the place doing heroic deeds. My mum did not appreciate my antics and she became extremely frustrated with my efforts to bring down the dastardly Doctor Octopus. She resorted to a bribe to calm me the fuck down. While most upstanding heroes wouldn’t even blink at a bribe I had been offered a shiny new Matchbox car in exchange for my co-operation. I concluded that I’d done all the saving of innocents I’d needed to for the day and that even the most selfless of heroes deserve nice things. I agreed to the offer and reverted back to my mild mannered secret identity. I remained calm all the way home in anticipation of receiving my new toy.
Soon as I got home I demanded the prize that had been promised to me only to have Mum tell me that I first had to eat my lunch, no doubt something gross like egg and lettuce sandwich or something (I was a picky kid). The Matchbox car was placed on top of the oven, well out of my reach, while mum prepared the boiled eggs. I was angry, this wasn’t part of the original deal. I was getting screwed over.
As I stewed on the floor of the lounge playing with my older, more boring toys the phone rang. Mum was forced to abandon her position at the stove to answer the call. I saw my window of opportunity and took it. Getting to the toy with my spider-like abilities would be easy.
It was a pretty straight forward operation. Push the chair to the stove climb on to the stove, to get to the oven to reclaim my rightful prize. Simple right? Only my infant mind forgot about the cooking of eggs that had occurred mere seconds before. I placed my little hands on the stove to pull my self up I was suddenly overcome with an intense burning sensation in my hands. I screamed and fell back to the floor.
Will our hero survive? Well, yes, I am writing this after all… but check back Friday for the exciting conclusion to Sock Hands!
To be continued…
