I damn nearly cut a finger off t’other day. Again. Kind of annoyed me.
A few of you with really long memories might remember that back at the end of my freshman year in college, I whacked off part of my left thumb and the tip of the middle finger on my left hand.
Workin’ in the woodshop makin’ furniture, I was, got in a hurry. There’s an important lesson here: One does not ever hurry around power tools. Should one do that, one stands to lose pieces of himself. In one quick, messy hurry.
No power tools this time. Just a hatchet – an old Estwing. Got left outside by the woodpile, so it was pretty rusty. I’d brought it in, put it on my workbench and was working some oil into the leather-wrapped handle. Went off to do something else.
On my way back to the garage, I noticed that the rubber edging between the planters and the lawn was being pushed up by roots. So I grabbed a shovel, loosened some soil and set about reseating the edging. That was when I ran into some thumb-sized roots that were the cause of the problem.
“No problem,” thinks I, “I’ll just grab that hatchet, remove them roots.”
Which is what I did. Grabbed a file first, though, and sharpened it good. Funny thing was, while getting it good and sharp, I thought to myself that I was going to have to be damned careful when I put the hatchet to work. Dangerous. Really sharp. A guy could damage himself.
I ignored this premonition and went to work. Things progressed nicely for a while. Then I swung and missed. Missed the root, that is. Hit the back of the forefinger on my left hand pretty nicely – I’d been using my left hand to pull that rubber edging away from my work area. Whack! Cut the finger to the bone, which isn’t at all far under the surface at that spot. If I’d been swinging just a little harder, I figure I’d probably have cut the thing off.
Good that I didn’t. Hard to play banjo when you’re missing fingers. Not impossible, but not easy, either.
But this turned out alright. Five days later now, the thing is healing up quite nicely. And what’s the lesson? I’m not sure, exactly. But next time I mess with that hatchet, I’ll be a little more careful of my fingers.
Howdja' tipe? Paynefullee?
Posted by: norskmaid | July 11, 2009 at 11:13 PM