Topic: ANECDOTES - OTHER THAN KARATE......

[Lloydie]

following Icy's theme of "little old ladies" :

I have only very very rarely been physically threatened in Psychy nursing.  In fact in over 26 years I can recall only a few occasions when I have actually been hit, and these were mainly the "lashing out" of people who were confused whom I had not approached correctly.

One of these involved a little old lady, who was confined to a wheelchair.  She was really fed up with being in hospital in a (her words) "old people's ward" despite the fact that she was in her 80's.  I was called across from the psychiatric unit because the staff were becoming concerned at her increasingly (verbally) aggressive behaviour.  I arrived to find this lady, in a wheelchair shouting at the staff, who were standing around at an understandable loss as to what to do with her.  I asked everybody to give us a bit of space and I approached her gently, asking her what was the matter.  We talked for a minute or so, just enough to establish that she was very upset with life at the moment, and I then decided to try to get her confidence by kneeling in front of her, as opposed to standing , threateningly over her.  I had no sooner kneeled down when she hit me, from her wheelchair, with a punch that would have raised a smile to Kawasoe Sensei's lips at the speed of it and probably an expression of "Ahh!!!...this one ...strong!".  
I myself was lost in wonder at the capacity of humans to retain one's energy in old age, despite infirmity.  The finer points of this joyous celebration of elderly vitality were, sadly quickly lost to me, as I sprawled backwards dumped on my best feature, with the beginnings of a fat lip I was to chew on for the next several days.

Being surrounded by the guffaws and derisive hoots of the watching staff, added a layer of trauma to the experience which paled only to the embarrassment of having to fill in an "un-toward incident" form, in which I had to detail the exact circumstances of my "assault" [i.e. - attacked by elderly woman in a wheelchair], the record of which would live forever, side-by-side with such entries as "Broke ankle whilst pushing child out of path of runaway horse&cart - returned to work within minutes" etc etc.

never underestimate the power of your opponent

lloydie

[Mole Bach]

Since Lloydie mentioned 'little old ladies', here's one.....

When I worked on the tools, we were working on this rather big project for the National Trust, over the road lived a little old lady, who, through no fault of her own, did nothing but complain about, well, everything, SO, what we did was (this of course is the proverbial WE), mixed some pink thistle (the pink plaster that goes on the wall, in case your female ) and put it in a plastic bag, now cut a little hole in the corner, and squeeze out some of the pink onto a hard surface (like putting iceing on a cake), in a spiral motion so that it looks like a BIG DOG has been and left you a little pressent.

Now then, to add effect, just before the pink has set, dip it into some 'FEB' (mortar plasticicer) to give it a little shine, and leave overnight.

Now for the following fortnight, the job of the first person on site would be to pick up one of these, and place quietly on this lady's doorstep.

When the lady got out to complain about the noise (vans, generators, dumpers, drills etc), the first thing she saw was this 'mound'; and she would dissapear back into the house to gather a load of newspapers, water, disinfectant etc to clean the doorstep, by the time she had finished cleaning it would be 10 o'clock break for the site, bliss.

I bet she wondered why over the month, the 'dog' never visited her on the weekend.