Waiting tables isn't regarded as one of the most dangerous jobs in the world especially when you compare it against the far more life threatening industries such as deep sea fishing or being in an army or being a one time mildly successful child actor. Oh Corey Haim - Drugs? Booze? Death? Where did it all go wrong? The loss of another memory of my childhood so soon after the death of the magnificent Michael Foot is almost too much to take. Corey Haim? Michael Foot? Same sentence? How frightfully odd. And yet still Maggie Thatcher and Adam Sandler still walk/shuffle about on this mortal coil. Sigh.

But anyhoo back to the dangers of waiting tables. No, as I say, you aren't likely to be dragged into the sea or be shot or suffer any other sort of grizzly death as a waiter. The most you are likely to suffer as a waiter is a nasty paper cut or a terrible case of cutlery polishing elbow. Chefs will try to injure/kill you on a daily basis by lobbing everything from hot pans to small children at you but no decent time served waiter will ever get hit. We are like the frigging Matrix man - all twisty moves and athletic jumps. They will try to hit us but they will never hit us. Fact.

But yet I did injure myself the other evening, an injury so ghastly that I drew blood. Stay clam, I'm okay now.

I was busying myself with the ever boring chore of polishing wine glasses when the blasted glass in my hand snapped into two or three pieces. One of these shards saw fit to launch itself through my shirt, through the forest of man hair and lodged itself into my generously proportioned tum tum. At first I didn't know what was going on. Had I been shot? It was horrific. I'm no John Rambo I can tell you. The sight of blood doesn't usually upset me, but it was my blood so I was rightly freaked out. Fair enough this wasn't a scene comparable to, oh lets say, Hellraiser or Platoon or 28 Days Later but still it was real and it was happening. To me.

I slowly unbuttoned my shirt to reveal the hairy and bloody mess underneath. It was a most perturbing sight. Blood and hair and of course glass all massed together. I rocked back on my heels. I felt faint. I pulled the glass out in one swift Rambo-esque move. But unlike him I didn't feel the need to go massacring any Asians of Afghanis, which would have been difficult anyway as the restaurant was closed at this point.

I dabbed a finger at my open sore and wondered what to do next. My hand quivered over the bottle of Remy but instead I opted for a cup of strong tea. Obviously when the manager d'jour stumbled behind the bar from his hiding place in the office, all shaky from all the coffee, he was more than a little curious as to why I was standing there with my shirt undone, drinking tea and trying to photograph myself.

"I've suffered a work place injury. The judge might be interested in these pictures", I protested with extra special vigour.

"Get over yourself. I get bigger cuts shaving", replied the flame haired key jangler. Ginger twat.

"But, but But..."

"But nothing. Put a plaster on it and please, for the love of god, button your shirt up." He was shielding his eyes now, lest he look straight at my rotundness. Ah you can always rely of management to be there for you when you need it most.

I washed the wound but there was no way in hell was I putting a plaster on it, not without shaving round the area first of all. By the time I got home I wasn't sure who I should sue first, my employer for lack of love and care or the manufacturer of the glasses. In the end I took Little Miss Manuel's advice and just dropped it. She said I was making a mountain out of a graze.

Graze? She wasn't there man....she wasn't there....

the horror...and the cut

heh