A friend of mine (ahem) fell off his bike last night and jeopardised an imminent family holiday as his injuries could quite easily have prevented him from being able to drive.

Should he:
a) Own up to his near miss although it will result in a bollocking?
b) Sleep in a t-shirt and gloves until the bruising goes and hope to get away with it?
c) Arrange himself in a heap at the bottom of the stairs and blame it on one of the kids leaving a trip hazard laying about?
d) Proudly announce “Waddaya think of this eh? Not bad for a man of my age”?

Is “Barry_the_Rider” able to drive? If so, I’m not seeing “his” problem. Coulda woulda shoulda, but didn’t, so who cares.

hide it at all cost – coming home with a gso much as a graze gives the missus enough reason to lay into me. Then just blame it on loading the car or something.. I have one more MTB ride before a 1500 mile drive myself tonight, so will hide any “accidents”.

e: Deep bronze/purple spray tan in preparation for holiday

f) feign ignorance, initially regarding the presence of the injuries, and thereafter the cause

Combination of a and d I reckon, though this is on the guess that the holiday isn’t jeopardised but could have been. If the injuries have jeopardised the trip then c is the one to take along with e) Run (or hobble) away.

‘Tis but a scratch…’

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4[/video]

c) Arrange himself in a heap at the bottom of the stairs and blame it on one of the kids leaving a trip hazard laying about?

This, definitely this.

Blame it on a nocturnal alien abduction + resultant hideous experiments. Complain of a sore botty to make it sound more plausible.

Fall out of bed during a strenuous session.

a) Own up to his near miss although it will result in a bollocking?

(a), but responding to the bollocking with “Oh, do shush LOL”.

🙂

Should he:
a) Own up to his near miss although it will result in a bollocking?
b) Sleep in a t-shirt and gloves until the bruising goes and hope to get away with it?
c) Arrange himself in a heap at the bottom of the stairs and blame it on one of the kids leaving a trip hazard laying about?
d) Proudly announce “Waddaya think of this eh? Not bad for a man of my age?”

A= Whats the point of hiding it? Better off just owning up and retorting with “Yeah, like woteva” if/when your wife starts the bolloking..

Be proud 😀

You may have aged but you are not ‘old’

I’m currently sporting 7 stitches in my right forearm, bruising to said forearm and more bruising and cuts to right thigh/buttock where I fell off my mountain bike.

I’m telling anyone who’ll listen how I did it 8) and hoping it heals quickly cuz it f#]king hurts 😆

If it’s the sort of family where you’ll be in trouble for something each day anyway, then it might as well be a)

next time your other half brushes up against you perform your best footballer dive and roll and you’ll be golden.

I guess I’m lucky in that so far it’s only my Mrs who’s scuppered holiday plans when she crashed off a jump and broke her thumb!

Anyway, your mate is absolutely fine for the holiday plans isn’t he? If your [i]his [/i]Missus wants to make issues out of hypothetical what ifs then you need to work on your sympathy gathering techniques.

could quite easily

aka didn’t

Get the missus to drive.

Sorted.

What sort of idiot would do that in the first place?

(no I have never had complete strangers come up to me pool side at centre parks and ask if was “ok” and had I “been in a car crash”)

Fess up and man-up with the Option D approach.

Ultimately chicks love their man to be doing manly stuff and are as secretly proud of your resulting scars/injuries as you are.

** NB this approach can backfire – QED I am now banned from racing having hospitalised myself doing so (although she was clearly secretly proud).

D – lying is just stupid.

My Wife is a wonderful, wonderful women – she does worry about me hurting myself, and I have had the “don’t smash yourself up 3 days before holidays” line – especially as she knows I once missed a Holiday due to being in a trauma ward at the time – but she accepts it’s part of who I am and the risks that go with it.

d) Proudly announce “Waddaya think of this eh? Not bad for a man of my age”?

This followed by, ‘it’s my biking that stops you having to go to bed with a fat lad’.

7 or 8 years ago I had a massive off (failed bunnyhop over a small drainage ditch at approx 30mph on a fast downhill rocky/cinder trail (Black Hambleton descent before it was sanitised for any North Yorkshire locals)) less than a week before I was driving on a family holiday from North Yorkshire to Cornwall.

Was OK once I was in the car but had to prize myself in and out by hanging onto the edge of the roof of the car as I had continuous bruising and road rash from my right knee up to and including my right shoulder.

By the end of the week away I could just about walk for a couple of hours without needing to rest/stretch/swear….

I’m now reminded of it on a regular basis and am banned from riding for the fortnight before each family holiday.

You’d only really need to worry about being in trouble if you had say…

Fallen while boundering on the first day of your week long holiday, breaking your arm, cutting head open and suffering concussion. Meaning that:

a) missus has to drive the big camper van (she doesn’t like that)
b) rest of the day spent visiting 2 different hospitals A&E departments
c) a return trip the following day to fracture clinic
d) missus driving the camper for the rest of the holiday around small country lanes
e) the second holiday of the summer (2 weeks touring north west Scotland with friends) is cancelled as I can’t drive and she doesn’t want to do all that driving herself (from Bristol)

I’m still living that one down three years later. And pretty miffed myself that we missed out on the Scotland trip before we we sold the camper van 🙁

“My mate” does have some history when it comes to hurting himself the week before he goes on holiday.

2006 – Sprained thumb the day before a drive to Cornwall.

1996 – Collar bone and shoulder on the first day of the holiday. Month off work and surgery.

His missus is no better though as she broke her leg in 3 places on day 1 of a holiday and spent a week in Barnstable General.

His best one resulted in him spending the first week of a holiday in Malta with a big Harry Potter stylie Z shaped gash in his head (don’t walk under a cast iron spiral staircase when you are pissed up kids) and covered in weeping sores from riding through some sort of poisonous vegetation. He dodged a bollocking on that one because his better half also rode through the same poisonous vegetation. We they looked like they had been putting out fires in a nuclear reactor.

This followed by, ‘it’s my biking that stops you having to go to bed with a fat lad’.

To which she replies, “only when you’re around.”

Wait a minute.

your better (and wiser) half

She’s reading this, isn’t she. Hello, Mrs Harry Barry.

Your mate used up all his luck when he didn’t injure himself more seriously. The situation is now beyond saving,he is wrong and should never have been doing anything even slightly risky anyway.The fact that he survived with minor injuries only emphasises his stupidity.The only course of action is to repeat the activity immediately in the hope of sustaining a much more serious injury.This may allow youhim to garner sufficient sympathy to ameliorate the bollocking to come. Under no circumstances should he attempt to fatally injure yourselfhimself though, she won’t thank him for it.

d) Proudly announce “Waddaya think of this eh? Not bad for a man of my age”?

Not sure how doing a whirly-bird is really going to help the situation?

“My mate” does have some history when it comes to hurting himself the week before he goes on holiday.

To be honest it sounds like maybe your mate would be better off at home, it’s safer* there.

*Well slightly at least!

Sorry to be boring and practical, but does your friend have breakdown insurance for their car? I was idly looking through mine (it was a very dull day) and saw it covered being unable to drive through injury before a holiday. In which case they provided a driver. This might mean leaving himself or herself at home to make room. Every cloud, etc.

Haha my wife and kids are at Manchester airport awaiting the flight to split.
I’m going for surgery to fix my broken wrist tomorrow morning. Oops!
I couldn’t really pretend everything was ok on Saturday as my arm was in a cast when she got home.
I tried meekly to pretend I’d tripped over the cat but she saw through that one.
Last year I broke my collar bone one week before driving to Austria.
What an idiot.
At least I can fly out on Saturday for the second week.
It’s been a tricky few days in our house…

Blame it on the bigger boys.

Funny you should mention the breakdown insurance…

Three years ago I my friend was on holiday with the family in Cornwall when on the first day my 4 year old lad jumped into my lap. As I was reading a paper at the time I didn’t see him coming or have time to brace for impact. As a result he landed knees first where you wouldn’t want it. The day after I was still in some discomfort but was able to carry on, until that is I got to a petrol station in Bodmin to fill up the car and promptly passed out, hitting my head on the boot as I went down. Managed to get the car to the local minor injuries unit and dropped again before I could get to the door.

Car stuck in Bodmin. Holiday house in Looe. Me in an ambulance on the way to Truro with an internal bleed. Wife and kids stranded.

I called the RAC about moving the car but it turns out that I wasn’t covered as I was broken, not the car.

It cost me £95 in taxis and a stay in Truro hospital.

Had to pick the car up the day after where it was still abandoned diagonally across 4 parking bays near the hospital doors.

T’riffic.