- 22/3/06
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After hearing Klink's great ski story I thought it was an interesting idea to share a funny, if not disturbing story.
When I was in college I worked for a carpenter. The perfect job for a college guy just out of the military: no stress and immense satisfaction. I’m always in awe when I realize that I can actually do something new.
This particular week is New Construction. We start with a hole in the ground and in a few months we have a house. The proud homeowners framed in their new front door, all four waving as we carpenters drive off into the sunset… another job well done, Kemo Sabe. Not really, but they generally seem happy when we leave.
New Construction is back-breaking labor, and involves a lot of heavy lifting and awkward materials. This morning I dropped a sixteen foot, two-by-twelve, pressure-treated board on my ring finger. You can imagine the dimensions of such a piece of lumber, and take my word for it: pressure-treated (the green boards that don’t rot) are much heavier than the regular old boards. In the simplest terms, it is a very heavy board. Really. Very heavy. Imagine this long, unwieldy, ponderous piece of wood. Now imagine your finger resting – lazy and unaware – on the corner of a concrete foundation. Add a bit of clumsiness, a dash of gravity, and you’ve got a recipe for comedy!
The worst part is that it doesn’t hurt right away. I watch my fingernail meld from a healthy pink into a radiant magenta, and the pain hasn’t hit yet, twenty seconds… 40 seconds… a minute and a half… I’m nervous in anticipation of the real pain… there’s a dull ache, and the color is changing into an interesting shade of purple… my fingernail is obviously adjusting to its new state of being, and is just gathering breath into its lungs before really letting loose with a horrific scream of pain.
The pain finally comes, and it’s about as bad as I expected. But right now it’s a curiosity, and I show it to my boss with a “see how stupid I amâ€
When I was in college I worked for a carpenter. The perfect job for a college guy just out of the military: no stress and immense satisfaction. I’m always in awe when I realize that I can actually do something new.
This particular week is New Construction. We start with a hole in the ground and in a few months we have a house. The proud homeowners framed in their new front door, all four waving as we carpenters drive off into the sunset… another job well done, Kemo Sabe. Not really, but they generally seem happy when we leave.
New Construction is back-breaking labor, and involves a lot of heavy lifting and awkward materials. This morning I dropped a sixteen foot, two-by-twelve, pressure-treated board on my ring finger. You can imagine the dimensions of such a piece of lumber, and take my word for it: pressure-treated (the green boards that don’t rot) are much heavier than the regular old boards. In the simplest terms, it is a very heavy board. Really. Very heavy. Imagine this long, unwieldy, ponderous piece of wood. Now imagine your finger resting – lazy and unaware – on the corner of a concrete foundation. Add a bit of clumsiness, a dash of gravity, and you’ve got a recipe for comedy!
The worst part is that it doesn’t hurt right away. I watch my fingernail meld from a healthy pink into a radiant magenta, and the pain hasn’t hit yet, twenty seconds… 40 seconds… a minute and a half… I’m nervous in anticipation of the real pain… there’s a dull ache, and the color is changing into an interesting shade of purple… my fingernail is obviously adjusting to its new state of being, and is just gathering breath into its lungs before really letting loose with a horrific scream of pain.
The pain finally comes, and it’s about as bad as I expected. But right now it’s a curiosity, and I show it to my boss with a “see how stupid I amâ€