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SKEWIFTED BY SHIRLEY A. HASTINGS
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SHIRLEY’S SKILLS
Shirley has a B.A. Honours degree in History and culture. She is also a writer and poet and has had her poems and short stories ‘from pillar to post’, published by Bolton Arts Council. She is a member of the Yoga wheel, and has an interest in gardening and amateur operatics. She spends most of her time caring for her mother who lives with physical disabilities.
SKEWIFTED BY SHIRLEY A. HASTINGS
Are you skewifted?
Do you suffer from probums*?
Are you a complete duffer at screwing in a screw, cutting a slice of bread, unlocking a door?
Are you unable to dance in rhythm, clap along to the beat, or tap your feet, without getting out of step?
Do you put the tops on jars and bottles cross threaded?
Do you turn left when the rest of mankind turns right? Perhaps you write a letter backwards, or miss letters out of words, reverse numbers, and spell in a bizarre way. In fact you are a complete menace in your work life. You know the type who constantly ‘gums up the works’ causing frustration all round.
Then maybe like me you are skewifted!
What is a skewifty?
Being skewifted is an extension from being left handed only far, far worse. Most left handers seem to get through their lives unobtrusively with out creating chaos, or jamming up the works. Causing irritation and frustration to others, who have to live or work along side them. They can and do adapt, and fit in with the rest of mankind.
But a skewifty cannot do this, easily anyway. A skewifty is marked out from the moment of their birth as a right utter chump! The type of person who ends up being on the end of everyone else’s bad jokes and mockery. The kind of person who makes the rest of mankind despair and throw their hands up in desperation.
The inability to perform the most simple and basic of tasks of life leaves a skewifty on the receiving end of a lot of flack, not all of it good humored.
I had known from early childhood onwards that there was something different about me. This peculiarity however did not improve as the years went by. I first realised I was a skewifty during a games lesson when the teacher called me over. Crooking her finger meaningfully, I knew she meant ‘business’.
“ Are you Skewifted?” Shamefully I nodded my head, as reluctantly I admitted I probably was. She pointed out that I ‘d just run fourth, third, second, and first base during a rounders match, and held the bat rounded side upwards, and finally thrown the ball backwards to the girl stood at backstump, much to the annoyance and frustration of the rest of the team. Someone had called out. “ Forwards, forwards Shirley you s-t.” No, she didn’t call me a skwewift on that occasion. Merely an abbreviated version of it.
Then in a cookery lesson I read the recipe backwards, and putting in the ingredients in the wrong way round. I ended up with an upside down pudding, It was supposed to be a Spotted Dick!
When I did make the Upside Down pudding I again reversed the recipe and made a rock cake! Well I would have done, but I turned the oven on in the wrong direction, and cremated it to a burnt and blackened cinder instead! I nearly set the oven on fire as well. Being skewifted I couldn’t fasten the door, as I kept turning it in the wrong direction. A girl saw me, and came to my rescue. Thus saving my ‘bacon’. But from then onwards my ‘reputation’ followed me through the rest of my schooldays like a bad smell. I was pointed at and even became a kind of ’mock’ celebrity! It was of fame I could well done without.
Leaving school I started what was to become a disastrous working life! As my work life has be fraught to say the least. Being skewifted I caused chaos wherever I worked.
Feeding the ‘Devil’ should have been repetitive and easy. Bit I keep feeding the product in the wrong way round and it jammed up the machine. Halting production for more than an hour! Everyone was glad of the extra break and they all bogged of for a smoke, and a long chat. But no sooner had we started up. When I forgot and did it again! Much to everyone’s annoyance, this time. Another hour of stopped production, and lost bonuses.
“She’s done it again!”
Went up the angry shout. Mr. Symmonds the boss came.
“Here Shirley! A minute in the office!”
“I, I can’t help it. I’m skewifted!”
“Well, you’er no use working here. I’m afraid you’er just not suitable.”
But now over two hours of production had been lost, and the rest were howling for my blood. I had to leave the premises, hurriedly, by the back gate! I didn’t even dare venture back in there again even to collect my miserly earnings. I did not want to face a possible lynching!
Then at another firm, things began to go wrong again for me, and I’d not even done another day!
"Are you skewifted?" questioned Bessie who was trying to train me in. Nodding my head, I had to admit that I was.
“ Mr. Alker! She’s skewifted!” She yelled out. Everyone else heard her, and I blushed red with shame and embarrassment. Ninety pairs of eyes swiveled in my direction curious to examine this human ‘oddity’.
I was then moved away to another part of the factory away from curious eyes, that were staring at my clumsy hamfisted ‘performance’. But even there I was slow and inefficient. So they sacked me.
The simple truth was no one wanted to employ a skewifty. Well, not on a long-term basis. Though I tried desperately to cover up. My deficiencies were soon painfully exposed. As no matter how hard I tried and very hard indeed being skewifted soon led to me getting into trouble, or worse still sacked. Although I tried hard I was a failure at doing most things, and being skewifted became a barrier to doing anything!
One was unable to even get remotely near the ladder let alone trying to climb it! As being skewifted affects every area of daily life, and no task comes easy. You are unable to do anything, I mean anything!
For instance I cannot:-
Dance,
Clap in rhythm,
Thread a needle with out using a threader,
Open tin cans, Cut bread properly,
Play any sport or games,
Drive a car,
Ride a bike,
Do simple addition, remember telephone numbers and words to songs, poems etc...
Turn a screw,
Knock in a nail strait and a host of other things.
I am poor at spelling and I reverse letters and numbers. My handwriting is poorly formed and illegible. I spill things when I’m trying to pour things out. I’m clumsy with a knife and fork. I have great difficulty sorting out right from left. Being thus affects almost every aspect of my daily life and I am unable to rise above the
poverty trap.
Perhaps I should now be put out to grass, and quietly retired. As I see to unable to get a long-term job, because of my probums, that are caused by being skewifted.
But fear of dying! It’s not just the normal fears that we all have. A skewifty being ‘cremated’. I blanch at the thought that it would be my coffin, out of all the thousands of that have been cremated at Overdale being the one that would go down the chute skewifted and broadside in. It would then jam up the works and end up being half burnt! Well, everybody said I was only half-baked! Then the Chapel of Repose would be put out of service, whilst the ‘occurrence’ was sorted out. The furnace balk at being then finally shoved in arse upwards! Oh no not that!
But burial has its problems. I have a vivid picture of my coffin being lowered into the ground, swinging crazily over the grave! Finally ending up jammed skewifted half way down the hole! The gravediggers would then have to hurriedly call out the J.C.B. to remedy the ‘awkward situation’. “Oh, please God, at my final resting, please let me go out with some dignity!”
As you can see being skewifted affects not only this life, but a safe and dignified passage into the next.
*probums - this is the way I spell the word problem
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