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OK, I admit it, the reason the windows on the upper floor of my house remained smeared with dirt, speckled with decaying insects and festooned with cobwebs for so long is my reticence to become involved with anything to do with a ladder. It's just that my fear of a ladder accident is almost matched by reluctance to pay a suitable professional to do the job.
However, last weekend after some less than polite encouragement from my wife, I finally decided to bite the bullet and climb the ladder. For several months I had escaped window-cleaning conscription by claiming that I didn't have the time. But after three days off work spent sipping tea, watching football and railing against boredom, when the first words my wife uttered last Sunday morning were, "You will actually clean those windows today won't you?", I decided that unless I wanted to go very hungry that week, I had no choice but to do them.
I know it's not very manly, but I have a terrible fear of heights and always have done. Knowing my wife's predilection for all things unashamedly masculine, I've somehow managed to hide this from her in nearly five years of marriage.
So when I knew that the time for me to climb the ladder and sort those windows out had finally arrived I was filled with trepidation, and even as I mounted the first rung, my senses went giddy with vertigo and fear of a ladder accident. At least, I reassured myself, my wife was not there to witness my humiliation, having gone out to do some shopping.
Anyway, needless to say, it took me nearly ten minutes to reach the top of the ladder. And when I at last arrived at the summit, rather than feeling a swell of Edmund Hilaryesque triumph I found that I was completely paralysed, unable to move through fear.
There I was at the top, not quite audibly whimpering, but certainly experiencing something that I can only describe as inward howling.
Although it pains me to say so, I must be brutally honest and say that I was stuck up there for nearly a full two hours, clutching on to the windowsill, feeling like I might tumble to my death at any moment.
This purgatory was only alleviated when my wife finally arrived home to find me, stock-still and teeth chattering, atop the ladder.
"What's the matter darling?" She asked. "You look like you're in suspended animation. Has something happened?"
Somehow I managed to utter the words, "I'm fine." She offered the curt and frankly cynical reply, "If you say so, but you don't look it or sound it", and left me to get on with things.
Around ten minutes must have passed, however, by that point I'd lost all sense of the normal passing of time before my wife returned again.
"Are you sure you're alright, John?" She ventured again. "You look terrified."
Sometimes it takes a brave man to swallow his pride, so I told her everything and explained that I was too afraid to get down in case I catastrophically shifted the weight of the ladder, sending it and me plunging to the ground.
Fortunately, as a counsellor, my wife is used to talking people through their fears. She told me that I was alright, that nothing would happen, that she would hold the ladder and ensure I got down safely: there would be no ladder accident.
Eventually, I reached the bottom, feeling, in equal measure, massive humiliation and gigantic relief.
What happened next? Did I return to the top of the ladder, only this time with new fearlessness and fortitude? Or did I call out a window cleaner to get the job done?
The answer? Neither.
I went inside and made myself a cup of tea as I tried to regain my composure.
30 minutes later I went to our bedroom to get myself a jumper to be confronted by my wife's face furiously concentrating from outside the main window.
Through the glass, I could not make out what she was saying.
"You're cooking tonight!" She shouted this time. "If you can't be a real man, let's see what you can do in the kitchen."
So, not a little chastened I went downstairs and tried to organise a meal.
Is it possible to claim compensation from any aspect of my experience?
Well, I didn't suffer personal injury in a ladder accident, I've discovered I cook a pretty good steak and, best of all, that the way to a woman's heart is through her mouth.
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