Happy Birthday, TUO!

Okay, so I have to post this for TUO’s birthday.

She and I and someone else (who was a conglomerate of a number of our mutual female friends) were at a museumey-type place. A Victorian museumey-type place. Conveniently, we were both all dolled up in our Steampunk gear, and one of the museum employees asked us if we wanted to participate in a kind of ‘modern-day re-enactment for the benefit of museum patrons’.

I said: “You mean, you want to *pay us* to LARP?”

And the museum patron said, “Beg pardon?”

And TUO said: “Yes. We’d love to.”

So, we did. We played the people who’d have lived in that house, or who’d have been there, and it was wonderful. We showed museum patrons around, we talked about what life was like for us there, and how strangely they were dressed, and how differently they spoke. We were, in all honesty, TOO GOOD for our roles. Too good.

The house was large enough (not unlike the Western Development Museum) to have a couple of shops in it, or rooms that were devoted to single themes. One room had hats in it, and I spent a Great Deal of Time in there, trying on various hats, and convincing myself yet again that Very Few Hats look good on cenobyte. TUO was discussing the particulars of sewery off in the parlour, and our other companion was, I believe, discussing literature upstairs (at this point, it was Rilla playing her).

A gentleman appeared in the room behind me. He also was dressed in period clothing, and had an Odd sense about him. He did not speak, but he approached me with Many Questions about him. I said to him, “I beg your pardon, sir. I did not hear you come in.”

He nodded, but did not remove his hat. Instead, he glanced out the window. “Are you familiar with this neighbourhood?” I asked him, hoping to engage him in some civilised conversation. He did not respond, but held out his hand, inviting me to share the view with him. I was nervous, and remained in the middle of the room. I could hear TUO in the next room.

In a flurry of activity and a flash of passion, the man was upon me, and in his hand, he wielded a straight razor. I held my hands out before me, and before I could so much as utter a sound, a searing pain coursed through my hands and up my wrists. The man rasped laughter and ducked out of the room, up the hall, and, presumably, out the door.

I cried out, and stumbled into the hall, covered in blood. I stumbled and fell to the floor. TUO was at my side in an instant, and Rilla-not-Rilla was there a few moments later. They asked what had happened, and I related, as best I could, in shock at the pain radiating up my arms, I explained the man had cut my hands. TUO, in a singular moment of clear-thinking, produced the needle and thread she’d been showing another patron in the other room, and suggested we could stitch up the wounds.

[seriously, I woke myself up laughing, so please trust me that it gets awesome at this point]

“That’s a great idea, TUO,” I said, “but it won’t work.”
“Why not?” she asked, Quite Worried by this point.
I held my mangled hands out between us, blood dripping on the floor. “Because I have no thumbs.” My thumbs had been hacked off.

All three of us began laughing uncontrollably at that moment, and, as I mentioned above, I actually *woke myself up* because I was laughing so hard. The bed was shaking. His Nibs woke up in a Panic. In a very sleepy Concerned Voice, he asked me what was wrong, and I had to answer, between bursts of laughter, “I’m laughing! I’ll tell you about it in the morning!”

I had trouble getting back to sleep because I was laughing so hard.

So, TUO, Happy Birthday. I’d send a card, but I have no thumbs. Damnit, that’s STILL stupidly funny.