From Knee-Length to Mini-Skirt in 45 Seconds or Less

Some of my posts take a few weeks to write in my head, and then finally I put them down onto "paper." This post just keeps popping up in my mind because the following story just makes me laugh. At myself. Again.

In Canada, by the time we got to the 2nd half of our journey, we were pretty rested up and manual labour looked kind of fun (it'd been a while, you know?). Tris' parents rent out their property/gardens for weddings during the warmer months, and one Friday night before a small Saturday wedding was to occur, we were tidying things up a bit. One of the given chores was to use the leaf blower to move dirt and debris, although a broom can do just as good a job in about 10x the amount of time. I won this job after much debate and hustling; I fought for the job because there's nothing like the feeling of accomplishment after one has literally "clean sweep-ed" an area. Once I figured out how to work the thing, and after Sunny and I finished our discussion on why I didn't need to go and change out of my skirt and into some grubbies (it was a cotton batik skirt that cost me about $2.50...I didn't think it was a big deal), I turned it on. All went well for quite some time, but it was about 3/4 of the way through that my arms began to get tired, and it became difficult to hold up the blower for very long. Occasionally my skirt would even get a bit close and 'stick' to the intake air vent. Some people don't take verbal suggestions very well, nor are they observant enough to recognize danger signs.

It wasn't until I felt heat against my legs, and was unable to move my thighs in any direction, that I realized that my skirt was not only venturing towards the engine: it had crawled inside! The motor started screaming a high pitched wail although, strangely enough, it had enough strength to keep on blowing at its regular force. I started yelling "Help!!!" and even though help in the form of Sunny and Matthew was only a few meters away, no one responded. Sunny looked up, smiled, and went back to her weeding. Matthew just kept listening to his i-pod. I yelled louder, laughing at the same time, and when Sunny looked up--she commented later--it seemed like I was having such a good time that I must be joking around with someone. Finally, it wasn't until I started yelling "No, I'm SERIOUS!!! HEELLLP ME!!" that Matthew gave me a funny look and decided to check out the situation. He came over and realized that he should probably turn off the engine. He then proceeded to try to catch the blower, which was still sucking my skirt into its belly, which in turn caused the skirt to tighten around my legs, which, combined with the force of the blowing air, was causing me to start to spin. Not an easy task for a young man, even one as co-ordinated as Matt.

Eventually, however, Matthew turned off the engine and removed my skirt from the fan. In all actuality, you'd think that after all that my skirt would have been a little piece of material, all in shreds, but it wasn't all that bad. If I was to cut out the damage, what was originally a knee-length skirt could become a mini. Not a good look, especially here in Indo. So, I gave the skirt to my sister-in-law, Laura, who hopefully can work that lovely pink and black piece of material into a quilt somehow. One of the best things about a quilt is that every square tells a story, and I like the story that the batik has to tell.