New and Creative Ways to Hurt Yourself

Except when it wasn’t.

Most people see Labor Day as a time to reflect on the Labor Movement, or perhaps take some time away from the job and decompress. Perhaps its the celebration of summers’ last gasp. For me, it’s just another opportunity to hurt myself in some manner, shape or form.

If I told you I had an accident with the table saw, your mind would immediately flip through whatever mental images you may have of severed digits packed in ice and a high speed trip to a local ER, where doctors may or may not be successful in reattaching said digits. This isn’t one of those.

You see, that’s not how I roll. I don’t do things that way. I generally know how to keep myself out of true harm’s way – you know, things like severed digits, severe blunt force trauma – but have a great capacity for new and exciting injuries with which to keep you, dear reader, entertained. And this weekend, while a momentous one for me in terms of acquiring the toys, er, tools that a man possesses, it was also a great opportunity to create for myself one hell of another article on self destruction. You see I am the only person you know who can cut his nose on a table saw.

Yup, I’ve moved on from chain saw accidents, and gone to table saws.

Well, it wasn’t quite a table saw accident, in the strictest possible sense. Strictest possible sense. In fact some might say that this wasn’t a true table saw accident. I beg to differ.

So, my man Ray donated an old table saw to the cause. This is good because every time I suggest that I should go get me a table saw, Mrs. Mo asks the same question and makes the same statement: “What are you going to do with it?” and “I like my men with 10 fingers.” Clearly, she knows a thing or two about her husband. The gift of a table saw is a fine one, since I needen’t justify an expense and since the trim boards on the house have needed repair for years now.

So, I went and bought a new saw blade and some boards. Since the boards are a non standard size – how does this keep happening to me; Everything about this flipping house is “non-standard” – I needed the table saw to rip them down. Hence, since I now had a concrete project on which the table saw was to be used, there was now no argument from Mrs. Mo, only the standard statement on the number of fingers equating to attractiveness.

So, there I am, in all my glory – $100 and 48′ of composite trim board – awaiting the saw, which would soon have a new blade. THIS, my friend, is where the story takes a bloody turn.

There I am, I climb under the saw – the only means of access to said blade – to switch out the blade using two wrenches, one to hold one bolt the other to loosen the second. Now, in my attempt not to rake my knuckles/hand across the blade, I apparently didn’t latch the wrench onto the bolt securely enough and off it came. Then came the blinding white light. Bonk! WOW – that hurt. But I finished the job and continued about my business.

Until I saw some blood on my hand and noticed a warm sensation across my face. No wonder she comments about such things as the number of fingers I have. What she misses, though, is that I’m far more likely to clip them off in a car door than to slice them off with something most people would consider dangerous, like a saw. Fact is, slicing my fingers off with a saw would be far too banal.

No my friends, I am creative and suffer the slings and arrows of my creativity to bring you, dear reader, these stories of my true nature.