In a Daze

I regularly find myself lacking self-worth and every now and then I do something so utterly ridiculous it can't help but take a knock. Indeed, the knock was literal this week.

One evening I went to fill up my car with petrol. The local petrol station is quite small and there is little room between the pumps. I managed to squeeze my car into position but as I tried to get out I realised I was parked so that the driver's door was too close to the hose of the diesel pump. Somehow I managed to squeeze out of the narrowest of gaps. This was a mistake. I stood there awkwardly for a moment considering that I should move my car forward a little but now I was out of the car there was no way to avoid a tricky entry. 

I filled up my car, where I look more stupid than most people. For some reason my petrol cap is really low down on the car to the point I have to bend over a little to reach it and the petrol hose is at exactly crotch level. But this humiliation is something I am at least used to my now. I filled up, paid, and then returned to the car. 

Now the difficulties really began. With the diesel hose in the way the door would only open so far, considerably less far than I would have liked. I went leg first on the basis that my legs would fit through the gap and gravity would do much of the rest. When you are my size getting into a car can be difficult at the best of times but this was a particularly challenging moment. I forced myself in but then things went wrong. 

Due to angles, my head was at the top of the door where the narrowest gap was- a gap that was considerably narrower than my head. The trouble is that your eyes are in your head and so it's difficult to judge whether your head can fit through a gap or not. Mine did not on this occasion. With an audible clunk, my head banged into the roof of my car. 

What's your automatic reaction to banging your head? It's to jerk your head backwards away from the thing it hit. The problem on this occasion was that there was a car door in the way of this so I banged the other side of my head on the door. Fellow customers probably heard something which sounded like "clunk, clunk" followed by a swear word. 

A headache swarmed through my brain immediately and I could tell this was worse than a regular head bang. The force of it from thrusting my body into the car and the double trauma were not a good mix. But I was five minutes from home so I drove home. 

When I got out I realised I felt really weird. It was like having had a few alcoholic drinks, a tipsy slightly dizzy feeling. I had a mild concussion or at least felt really dazed. I found myself OK if I was sat still but very weird if I started moving around. 

The next day I got up as normal and drove to work, which probably wasn't a sensible idea. Once I started moving around at work I realised I still felt pretty much the same. It took a few more hours before the dazed feeling finally left me. 

How stupid was this? How can you hurt yourself getting into your car? I'm suppose to be a grown adult that can do things like go and fill up on petrol without nearly knocking myself out! When something like this happens, which let's face it is fairly regularly for me, I can't help but feel like a ridiculous human being.