Craig Cooper: Who's the flat white guy on the ground?

Northern Advocate Editor Craig Cooper enjoys a coffee break.

Opinion

Perhaps I was born clumsy.

At a young age I accidentally stood on a bottle that severed an artery in my foot and bled like the proverbial stuck porcine all over a freshly concreted driveway.

The juxtaposition of the white concrete and red blood sticks out, but more so does the memory of the labrador licking up the blood while I screamed bloody murder.

The bandaged foot for the next month or so meant some time off school, where I honed my magic skills.

These were presented to the class. I think I dropped the ring that was "magically" sliding up and down my wand, and it dangled from the "invisible" cotton that was a key part in its movement up and down the wand.

I don't recall a lot of applause, even less than when I stood in front of my five-year-old classmates and opened my pencil case to search for the ice I had found in a puddle at the bottom of our gate that morning.

The ice was gone - magic.

Although I have a reputation for being clumsy within family circles, I have managed to escape breaking any major bones, apart from a finger here and there, in my body until I clumsily fell from a bike and knocked myself out and snapped my upper arm.

In the early stages of dating my wife I was demonstrating my seafaring skills and we were both in a small dinghy I had expertly brought into Onerahi foreshore near the boat ramp in tricky conditions.

She looked toward land and then turned back to me to discover I had disappeared over the side, caught unawares by a wave slapping the side of the boat whilst I had perched my backside on its edge.

I was wet, but warm, thanks to the sopping woollen Swandri I was wearing when I peeled over backwards and vanished into the water.

It was a boat that I once nearly sank when I stood up to pull on the outboard cord, and some water - the volume of which I had underestimated - rushed to join me in the stern.

The stern came within centimetres of disappearing below the ocean surface and I fell backwards into the front of the boat.

The water dispersed more evenly and I was able to bail enough water out of the dinghy to make it back to land.

What does this have to do with anything, you ask. Well the photo alongside this column is slightly misleading, but I did drop the coffee.

After failing to deliver the coffee, I delivered the news the coffee would be late, and posed for this photo for some fun.

Somehow it ended upon the Northern Advocate Facebook page, and on a gloomy day weatherwise, people seemed to enjoy my misfortune.

After five hours there were 6300 people had viewed it. And some lovely comments, and advice, thank you.

(I enjoyed the one re who is the flat white guy.)

There were no injuries. And let's just say that in future, I will hold the coffee tray with two hands, not one.