The title of this piece, as will rapidly become apparent, is meant in the spirit of irony rather than sincerity.
It all started last Wednesday at 2:17 p.m.
The walk from my apartment to my school is a short one, a mere five minutes amble so, as is my custom, I left my apartment at 2:15 to be early for my 2:30 class. My step was jaunty, my coat was warm and I had a tape recorder for the lesson firmly grasped in my hand.
I went down the five flights of stairs, round the block, through the gates and exited onto the street. There my foot collided with the curb and I stumbled forward. I might have recovered had I not stepped onto a patch of ice. I slipped and was pitched through the air by my momentum. The cassette recorder went flying from my hand. I put out my arms to break my fall. It was no good. My left hand and my right knee hit the floor simultaneously.
Passers by hurried to help. My leg was scraped and two fingers were bent at angles that fingers are not designed to bend at. Two kids from my school - though not my class - helped me to the school premises and then went off to fetch a teacher.
For the moment any pain was being masked by the shock.
Teachers came.
Kids departed, taking my cassette to the office as they went.
A taxi was called.
Five minutes later I was at the hospital.
They cleaned up my knee and examined me.
The escorted me to X-Ray, explaining that they thought my fingers were dislocated rather than broken and that my knee was only grazed.
It turned out that they were half right - the wrong half.
My fingers were indeed dislocated but my knee was another matter. There was a small fracture in the patella.
The fingers were rapidly, if painfully dealt with and a finger guard placed over them to be removed in three weeks when the muscles had healed.
As for the knee they told me not to worry. It was small and would heal easily - given about six weeks in a plaster cast.
So there went my plans for Christmas and the New Year and there went my plans for a holiday in Shanghai.
