MINDLESS MUSINGS

One evening after consuming a large amount of beers down at Jonno’s house, we decided to take the festivities up onto the roof. John, Mick and I took a couple of beers each and climbed up the flimsy ladder at the back of the house onto the slated roof.

I don’t know how long we sat there sipping beers and staring at the stars; viewing various sights of Tempe that we had never seen from such an angle. I do not recall what we talked about or whose bright idea it was to do the stupid thing.

All I remember is holding onto a couple of roof tiles near my butt and spinning my body in a clockwise direction. With my head spinning fast I got that old familiar feeling of being a child and just spinning on the spot. Only trouble here being that I was up on a roof and very drunk.

I am not sure if I was the first to try it, or how long I was doing it for, but I lost my grip and was flung forward off my butt and straight ahead with nothing else to grab hold of. My drunken mates could only watch in shock as I seemed to be hurtling off the roof.

Do you believe in miracles?

Lucky for me there was a chimney halfway down the slope of the roof directly in my path. Luck only for me because had it happened to any of the others they would not have had said chimney to save them. I slammed into the chimney and it hurt. I spun myself around and looked up at my mates with my back leaning against the chimney. I don’t think the seriousness of the situation had really hit me. What if I fell over backwards? No chimney on that side.

John and Mick were glaring at me wide-eyed with mouths agape. Finally Jonno started laughing and said through giggles “if that chimney wasn’t there you would be dead”. We all laughed and then decided to get down off the roof to continue our drinking on solid ground.