Dancing with Cookers

When I was four years old, my dad had to make a difficult conversation, over the phone about me. I had hit my head and my hair was matted with blood, which continued to leak from my wound.

Now, being four, I felt pretty invincible about most stuff: I was the dancing fairy queen. So, of course, I had to twirl as fast as light itself in our kitchen (as you do).

I had built quite a momentum, my minus-sized feet pattering on the orange-lined floor, like the ballerina I felt I could become.

I must have been spinning for a good five minutes – occasionally protruding my arms to make desperate, chicken-like movements (looking back, it probably looked more like a satanic ritual than a homage to dance). And then, tiredness or destiny or just the law of gravity walloped me off balance and I fell. However, instead of gracefully flailing on the floor like a puppy made of jelly, our metal cooker managed to sneak onto the scene too. (Probably trying to upstage my flawless pirouettes.) So, as my body embraced the concept of casually flopping on the floor, my head struck the metal cooker and then I smacked the floor.

I don’t remember what happened next (hopefully due to my age and not the head injury…) but at the time, I do know that my mum was doing our weekly, evening shop at Tesco. So, it was my ill-prepared dad who found me and the blood and the defiant-looking cooker (and probably my mucus-and-tea-smeared face too). So, he had to phone mum to update her on my new health status.

She must hurled her trolley at the nearest barely-qualified checkout assistant and sped home instantly, as my next memory is both my parents delicately sponging my head and hair with cotton wool pads. (Coincidently, this was the time in my life when my hair was past my waist – I should have learnt from the nit incident that hair that long on a small child is just asking for multiple catastrophes.)

As my brother was still a baby (and probably completely oblivious to the unprovoked attack the family cooker had assaulted on his sister), it was only my mum and I who flew down to A&E, to get my head glued up (not by a school Prit-Stick, I was to later learn).

Yet, despite my gaping cut – which had ceased bleeding, finally – I was completely calm. In fact, I distinctly remember quizzing my teacher-mum on who were her nicest and naughtiest kids in her class.

In the end, I was completely fine after glue and a lollipop, but that can probably be down to my childhood resilience (rather than my unknown superhero powers). And so I feel, if I have learnt anything from my tango with the cooker - other than spinning in the kitchen is not the best idea I’ve had - it’s that if there is ever a knock in life (hopefully not concocted by your own, rustic cooker), just remember there may always be a lollipop at the end. Metaphorically speaking: there will be other, more practical thing like happiness or winning the lottery too. But, a caring hug and multi-coloured sweetie is a good place to start.

In response to hearing some of 'The Moth Podcasts' - they're fab!