If You’re Going to be Dumb, You Gotta be Tough
So I received my first real construction injury this morning. It was due to happen, mainly because I’m a klutz.
I was walking over to pick something up when I stepped on a foot long chunk of 6x6 laying on the top of a concrete wall. The joists butt into the concrete wall and there is roughly 7 feet down to the ground below. As I put my weight on the 6x6, it rolled out from under me and I found myself in a freefall once again.
After the split second of telling myself, “Great, this is going to hurt for sure,” my mind immediately switched to making sure I didn’t somehow manage to find a way to fall through the joists onto the hard ground below. My experience with an extension ladder imprinted the fact that falling to the ground is not pleasant, so avoiding that is always the first thing in my mind.
I threw my arms out to catch the joists and somehow managed to get my leg pinned into the concrete wall. When I felt the pain of my shin smashing into the wall, I knew some damage had been incurred.
Everyone quickly rushed to the scene to make sure I was ok, and after standing up and jumping around for a few seconds in a vain but humorous attempt to shake away the pain, I assured them that I was.
I lifted my pant leg to assess the damage to my shin. My leg was turned into hamburger; it was awesome. I have a 2 and a half inch scrape and a massive bruise surrounding the area.
I decided to take my licks like a man and laughed it off. As I showed off my new battle scar to the foreman, he gave me a coy smile and said, “If you’re going to be dumb, you gotta be tough.” It was the perfect comment at the time and something that, hindsight being 20-20 and all, sums up a fair amount of my life up to this point.
I toughed it through the rest of the day and went home intent on milking some sympathy out of the lady. It only worked for a couple of minutes before she saw through my game. I weighed 174 pounds today.
I was walking over to pick something up when I stepped on a foot long chunk of 6x6 laying on the top of a concrete wall. The joists butt into the concrete wall and there is roughly 7 feet down to the ground below. As I put my weight on the 6x6, it rolled out from under me and I found myself in a freefall once again.
After the split second of telling myself, “Great, this is going to hurt for sure,” my mind immediately switched to making sure I didn’t somehow manage to find a way to fall through the joists onto the hard ground below. My experience with an extension ladder imprinted the fact that falling to the ground is not pleasant, so avoiding that is always the first thing in my mind.
I threw my arms out to catch the joists and somehow managed to get my leg pinned into the concrete wall. When I felt the pain of my shin smashing into the wall, I knew some damage had been incurred.
Everyone quickly rushed to the scene to make sure I was ok, and after standing up and jumping around for a few seconds in a vain but humorous attempt to shake away the pain, I assured them that I was.
I lifted my pant leg to assess the damage to my shin. My leg was turned into hamburger; it was awesome. I have a 2 and a half inch scrape and a massive bruise surrounding the area.
I decided to take my licks like a man and laughed it off. As I showed off my new battle scar to the foreman, he gave me a coy smile and said, “If you’re going to be dumb, you gotta be tough.” It was the perfect comment at the time and something that, hindsight being 20-20 and all, sums up a fair amount of my life up to this point.
I toughed it through the rest of the day and went home intent on milking some sympathy out of the lady. It only worked for a couple of minutes before she saw through my game. I weighed 174 pounds today.
posted by fuqstik @ 6:20 PM
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