Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Just another just another. . .






















I walked to work this morning, about a mile through yet another snowstorm. When I called the dealership from there, I was told that I'd blown a hose on the power steering, but that the pump didn't seem to be working, either. They were looking into pricing the parts and would get back to me.

None of this surprises me. This particular dealership always finds "something else wrong" that they can make a little scratch on. So it'll probably take another day, and be costly.

A year ago, I'd be really upset by this. Now? Eh, after what I've been through in the last few months, and what I still have hanging over me, this is just one more thing. A pebble. If they have to keep the car again overnight, it'll be a fine excuse to not go back to the old house tonight. I'm still exhausted from Sunday.

I had a call from someone at the telephone company. He said that the house might be unplugged at the box, and that I might be able to solve the problem myself.

I'm thinking: "With my luck? I'll probably electrocute myself."

Keep your eye on the papers. I could end up in one of the Darwin Awards books over this one.

It brings to mind something that happened after the big Ice Storm knocked out the power in the old house for fourteen days, more than a decade ago. A huge branch of the maple tree had broken and needed to be cut down. I borrowed my brother-in-law's chain saw.

A chain saw and I do not belong in the same sentence. I had no ladder tall enough to reach the branch, so I climbed up into the tree and sat astride an adjacent branch, with the saw raised over my head, cutting away. When the branch finally broke free, I saw to my horror that some moron had wired it to the tree.

The next couple of seconds happened in slow motion. The falling branch caught, swung in a wide arc away and back, and the butt of it that I had just sawed through slammed into my left leg with what felt like the force of a piledriver.

Somehow, I hung onto the saw, and managed to avoid performing a self-amputation. But you can bet I screamed like a banshee! I was never one to suffer in silence, as you might have guessed by now.

So if you see a headline reading "Idiotic W_________ Man Mistakes Power for Phone Line, Electrocutes His Damn Self," you'll know it was me.

-- Freder.

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