Heavenly Beverley : The Watusi Quickstep Strikes Again!

Wednesday 5 December 2018

The Watusi Quickstep Strikes Again!

The Watusi Quickstep and I are old friends. Back in the Time of the Dinosaurs, I would often suffer from leg cramps when I woke at night. Usually, a child was involved, wailing in the immediate vicinity. As I was shaken out of deep sleep, I would inadvertently stretch my legs prior to full consciousness. As my calf, or if I was really lucky, both calves would lock up involuntarily, I would leap out of bed, yelling incoherently (probably talking in tongues) and lurching around the bedroom, in a vain attempt to lessen the pain in my lower legs. Thus the Watusi Quickstep was born,

When my Autistic Superstar began sleeping through the night, my body was so relieved that I don't believe I surfaced from Cloud Cuckoo Land for a number of years. Later, I don't remember being bothered by leg antics at night at all.

After I met Michael, the Watusi Quickstep reappeared in my life. Much to my horror, I was performing this anarchic dance during the day as well. There was the Planking in Reverse variant on several occasions - falling backwards whilst pulling over a dead tree for firewood or falling backwards over a lump of concrete. Then there was the Drop Zone - plummetting a metre onto concrete after a set of wooden steps broke underneath me. The Face Plant involved pitching headfirst into a very large pile of mulch whilst attempting to have a wee on crutches and a completely graceless dive onto a large cement paver whilst utterly sober. Disaster. Finally, there was the Dying Swan, desperately scrambling at an inert and utterly unsympathetic wall as my legs went astray beneath me. Also whilst sober. Hmmm...

Michael was immune to the Watusi Quickstep for some years. Then as night follows day, he succumbed to the Dance. The first truly memorable episode was whilst we were resident in the Hovel as Station House was being built. Somewhat inebriated, Michael became annoyed at the "click, click, click" of our exceedingly cheap and nasty fan pushing relieving coolness around our bed. As he lunged in the direction of the noisy device, he made a forlorn effort to grab the rotating top. Alas, the fan refused to co-operate. They locked in an unlikely tango, before heading for the floor in an unnatural embrace. The fan was mortally wounded. Michael was uninjured. However, the horror of the Watusi Quickstep stayed to haunt him...

Fast forward to Tuesday. Michael decided the time had come to reverse Digger into the Hovel's yard. With very little angst, we successfully performed this task. I climbed into Digger to strip the bed. His interior was as hot as Hades. So I opened up his windows.

Michael's eyesight (or concentration) failed him miserably. He walked into two of the caravan's windows - one on each side. Then he reached the crescendo of his solo performance. Losing his footing, he slid inelegantly down a mild slope. Having skinned his nose on Digger's window, he proceeded to slice open his arm and whack his head.

Bleeding and indignant, he made his way inside. I soothed the savage beast, dressed his wounds, gave him Panadol and made him some lunch.

And I'm afraid I laughed. A lot. Michael was not amused.