Karla and the Man-Eating Hammock

I think it's been established that my life can never be simple. And that I can never be cool. I can try as hard as I want, but The Gods of Goof always remind me that I am under their constant surveillance.

So, today I was out on our wrap-around deck, wearing a bikini top and shorts, doing some cleaning. The deck is walled with heavy clear glass to keep anyone from falling off, and it looks cool, but it also means NO privacy and that glass gets alarmingly dirty, especially after the late pollen showers we've had. I noticed the neighbors had all cleaned THEIR glass, which meant, dammit, that I had to do ours to keep up with the Joneses. (Though in Norway it's keeping up with the Lunds, I guess.) It was a great opportunity for tanning, as it's a beautiful day, hence my wearing the bikini top and shorts. I would have worn the bikini bottoms, too, but glass walls and great visibility to the neighbors nixed any ideas of my exposing my ass to so many in such a bug under a magnifier way. Bikini tops are perfectly acceptable hereabouts, and in hot weather you see girls wearing them walking around, perfectly comfortable. (Yes, guys, Norway is heaven in summer.)

So I got busy with the cleaning, being extra careful not to douse the people five stories below with water spray from the hose. There are shops and cafes down there, and it would not be nice for me to hose down innocent shoppers and eaters. (Not nice, but it would be fun...and it was tempting. But I refrained. I'm evil, but not rude.) I got pretty soaked in my cleaning frenzy, and let me tell you it was COLD water. But the glass is clean of pollen and all is sparkly.

AFter all my hard work, I fixed myself a sandwich, got my latest book du jour (James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces", yes I am behind but hey, I am also half a world away, ok?) and settled down for a nice laze in the hammock.

THE HAMMOCK OF DEATH!

I ate my sandwich, drank my lemonade, and snuggled in for a good read in the warm sun when I noticed that my swimsuit top was sort of bunched up. I tried to sit up to fix it....but got yanked back down to the hammock. Oh SHIT. My top was tangled in the hammock strings. Somehow, someway, the hammock had grabbed the back of my top and it was SERIOUSLY twisted in the ropes. I could feel it, when I reached around and there was NO WAY I could get it unstuck. Now....this is bad.

I am 5 stories up. The phone is nowhere near me. I am tied to a hammock. By my very small bikini top. In the bright sun. I have sun screen on, but it's about 4 hours til Rich comes home and I don't really want to bake myself to a fritz. And boy can I sunburn. To add to this, I am RIGHT next to the glass wall, so anyone in the whole building next door, and many of the folks in our building, can see me really clearly. Not to mention the workmen who have built scaffolding on our building to fix some enginneering issues that have cropped up.

People, I am fucked.

I tried to just hang out calmly in the hammock, wiggle back and forth, hoping that however my top got IN the ropes it would work its way OUT. Nope. I gathered my book to my chest and used it as camouflage as I twisted my top around to see what was going on in back. OUCH.. That hurt. However, I could see that the hook of my top was double twisted in the rope... and it was no longer holding my top closed.

My only choice is to remove the top. I can't extricate myself any other way. FUCK.

I am not an exhibitionist. Especially on my own deck where the neighbors would forever remember me as that strange hammock-obsessed girl with the removable bikini top. (And these boobs have RARELY seen the light of day....which explains their perfection, if I do say so myself.)

I peeked out through the glass to see if anyone was looking, or out on their balconies. Pretty clear. The workmen were on a lunch break or something, I'm not sure, but they weren't in the immediate vicinity. It would be a simple matter, now that the back of my top was open, to wriggle out, leave the damn thing attached to the hammock and run like hell into the flat.

I gathered my book over my boobs (note to self: always read bigger books from now on, no small paperbacks), slipped the straps over my shoulders, rolled off the hammock onto the deck sans bikini top and ran like the dickens into the flat, clutching the book as tightly as possible. "A Million Little Pieces" became my One Great Hope of Modesty.

I am proud to report I only have one small bruise (besides that of my pride) from my roll off the hammock.

I came back outside clad now in a very large, hook-free t-shirt, and it took me about three minutes to get the top unhooked from the hammock. It was REALLY caught. Caught like a fish in a net.

Why do things like this happen to me? Do I have "dork" tattooed to my forehead? I mean, c'mon!