Sunday, August 27, 2006

The Assistant Village Idiot Injures Himself

One of my prayers over the last few years has been "Lord, just don't let me die of something stupid." That woman who wanted to get a better photograph at the national park a few weeks ago... stepped over the guradrail and fell over a 500-ft cliff? "Yeah, not like that Lord, if you could, please. I don't like pain, but I'll take that if necessary. I don't want one of those one-in-a-million diseases either, but I'll put up with it if I have to. I just don't want everyone's last memory of me to be 'He thought the ice was strong enough,' or 'We told him not to put his hand inside.'"

When one asks God for something like that, one has a certain sheepishness, recognizing immediately that God's right eyebrow is raised, asking "And I gave you a brain of your own for what purpose, exactly?" Well yeah, but I only remember to use it about 90% of the time, so if You could please, y'know, help me out during those other times...


It was a typical guy injury. I was installing something on the bathroom ceiling, and it wasn't fitting in quite smoothly. So I pushed and jiggled one end, then I climbed down, walked over and pushed and jiggled the other end, but couldn't get both ends fitting at once. If I could just work more from the middle, maybe ... both ends would slip in. So I stepped on the antique footed bathtub which is not yet installed, but sitting around, getting in the way. One clawfoot came loose, and I slammed seemingly unrelated parts of my body into the tub on my way to the floor. My first thought was "I'm alive," and my second was "I don't notice extreme pain anywhere." By my seventh thought I was already at "I almost had that piece in. If I just stayed more to the left next time..." Fortunately, I didn't attempt it again.

So I'm glad it's just an aching shoulder, really. Annoying but not deadly, embarrassing but not humiliating.

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