CAN YOU AVOID A FUSS?

If you don’t want a fuss but you know that by saying you don’t want a fuss you automatically cause a fuss and by not saying you don’t want a fuss you get a fuss anyway, what are you supposed to do?

I’m er, I’m asking for a friend… who is, er, still recovering from, ooh, let’s say, breaking a toe… two weeks ago.

Yeah. I wish I hadn’t done that. I keep trying to prove I’m much better and then I stubb it into something by accident. Like the stairs, or the side of the bath, or the box of books that’s under my desk. A fuss generally ensues, whether I like it or not.

What’s more I’ve go to to an outdoor gig this weekend where all my friends will be standing up. Sammy messaged the event organiser to see if they’d let me in in a wheelchair. That is a fuss.

I’ve got nothing against the chair by the way; she’s already pushed me round two garden centres in a wheelchair and it was fine. I mean it was socially weird (people only talked to her and never made eye contact with me), and I did break a bottle of rosy lemonade, but it was marginally better than hobbling round on crutches.

No, it’s the thought that my options on Friday might boil down to either a kind of roped-off section away from everyone, feeling embarrassed and sort of gawked at, or, worse, enjoying the gig from behind a stranger’s bottom. I may as well stay at home with my AirPods in front of the laundry.

I think I’m going to have to conclude that from the moment I tumbled on that track, the fuss, like the broken toe, was utterly inevitable. Writing about it, wearily telling people how it happened, gulping painkillers, shuffling up the stairs, howling at lovely, patient Sammy when it hurts and then getting worried that I’ve been a moaning minnie: all these things are fuss, as is pretending I can run, forgetting I can’t, clattering the crutches round Sainsbury’s, and the unending cabin fever of not being able to leave the house or drive anywhere.

So what’s the answer to my question? Well fuss is a part of life isn’t it. You go through it not around it. You have to just get on with it, without letting it get to you. You ask for help lifting things, you keep your humour light, your patience strong, and your love on your sleeve. And maybe focus on your shoes if you’re in a wheelchair at an outdoor gig.