Creation of the Mangina - Part 1

Now from the title of this note, you no doubt have already daubed me some sort of deviant pervert, but before I proceed any further I have to tell you that the term “mangina” was lovingly coined by a DOCTOR friend of mine and is not vulgar or disgusting in any way.

Well, actually it is kind of disgusting, but not for any deviantly perverted reasons.

I have recently come to the conclusion that I am getting older and that one day all my good stories will become hazy memories to me. So I am recording them for posterity’s sake.

Let’s journey, if you will, back to New Year ’s Eve 2003/4.

(Pretendy, wavy, hazy lines that signify time travel would appear here if this were a cheap budget tv show)

I am enjoying the festivities from the balcony of one of the Waterfront Apartments with some friends, playing “Punch Little Black Dress” which is the same as “Punch Buggy”.

For those who don’t know what “Punch Buggy” is, it is a silly and childish game that I LOVE whereby if you see a VW Beetle you punch a friend/associate/significant other/random-passer-by in the arm and shout “Punch Buggy”.  More astute players will shout out “Punch Buggy! No returns” which immediately disables your counterpart from punching you back.  It’s like saying “no returns” creates an impenetrable deflector shield, causing your adversaries to immediately recoil from retaliating.

Anyway….

We have a great view of the “New Year by the Pier” event from the balcony and we’re playing “Punch Little Black Dress”. Subsequently I end up with a humongous bruise on my arm because just about everybody is wearing a little black dress.  The game then evolves to “Little Black Dress, Blonde Hair” as this affords my housemate several more opportunities to hit me.  I’d like to point out that this housemate was female and because I am a man of honour, the game was decidedly one-sided.

So with New Year’s resolutions firmly in place (must get fitter and will exercise EVERY DAY) we see in 2004 in style.  We have done the responsible thing and left our cars at a friend’s place that we can easily walk to the next day (although I ended up driving a tag-along home after he crashed our party and tried, unsuccessfully, to start several fights – but that’s a story in itself).

So….next morning I get up early, head downstairs and begin my exercise regime by eating breakfast for the first time since 1987 and doing several sit-ups, push-ups and other forms of punishing exercises in order to honour my commitment to get fitter and exercise EVERY DAY!

Then my housemate and our other friend get up and we decide it is time to go and get the cars.

My housemate had a cute little gay dog who pranced around like Pepe Le Pew of Looney Tunes fame. His leash is in the car that we are going to collect, but we want to take him on our walk anyway and so attach a belt to his collar by the buckle and off we go.

We are all feeling very zesty and refreshed and super duper serious about our resolutions. We are so proud of ourselves because going on this walk means we are committed to them, whereas in previous years, we have lasted only one day.

Rather suddenly, the end of the would-be leash that my housemate is holding snaps and gay dog gallops away. I immediately take off after him despite the fact that I know subconsciously that he would come back if we just call him.  But dammit,  I’m feeling all heroic and so pursue at high speed, attempting to step on the trailing belt still attached to gay dog’s collar

CLANG!!

“AAAARRRGGGHHHHH!”

I heard that sound you get when you hit one solid metal pole with another one. It is sickening.

Before I’ve lost momentum and stopped running, I am acutely aware that my leg and sock are both wet.

I’d run full speed into a towbar that was sticking out of a driveway and am now looking at what vaguely resembles a Ribena fountain flowing out of my leg.

I sit down and put my leg out straight because as far as I am concerned, gravity is my biggest threat at this point.  My friend sprints off to get one of the cars and later admitted that she felt as though she was in one of those epic scenes in a movie. You know the ones - where the worn out athlete has to push on through the pain barrier to emerge victorious, and there's a montage and stuff. One assumes that “Gonna Fly Now” from Rocky was playing in her head as she ran, breathless and wheezing towards the car and was thinking “Must save Marky, keep running for Marky”

Meanwhile, gay dog has sauntered back to where I am sitting, trying to stem the blood flow with my pathetic little ankle sock whilst my housemate is encouraging me to lie down.  I say I don’t want to, but then TSUNAMI OF NAUSEA and extreme light-headedness kick in and suddenly the thought of lying down on the pavement seems positively frikkin’ superb, so I do.  The sock is now so soaked that it is stuck to my leg anyway, so I can let go of it and just lay back.

A cute little old lady across the road comes out and asks us if we are okay and if we need anything.  I turn my head and say we are fine, but my housemate, rather shakily, asks for a glass of water.

She’s not very good with blood and trauma and she later admitted that she wanted me to lie down so that I would not see her assuming the foetal position and quivering in an alarmingly psychotic manner. Bless.


A man comes out from the house next door to where we’re lying, offers to get something to help clean me up a bit and disappears back inside.  In the meantime, the people who own the car I’ve run into come out of their house and choose not to acknowledge us despite the fact that my housemate is a quivering wreck and I am bleeding all over the pavement right in front of them. They just load up their car (yes, the blood spattered one that was wearing a large portion of my shin) and drive off.

My friend pulls up just as the man who had offered to clean me up comes out with an ice cream tub of water and a cloth.  To be fair, he had gone to get that stuff AGES ago and so by the time he comes out, I am clambering into the car and taking off my other sock to use as a temporary bandage.

Luckily my friend’s dad is a doctor so she rings him and asks him if we could come to his house to get cleaned up and see if it needed stitches instead of going to the hospital. I don’t know why I would have thought it wouldn’t need stitches. Presumably I thought my ankle socks were enough to stem the flow and maybe a band aid would be all that was necessary.  But what would I know? I mean, I’d left half of my blood on the pavement, so my normally stellar medical knowledge was a little less reliable than normal.


To be continued.......

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