Thinking Out Loud – Rules we know exist but we constantly ignore

Thinking Out Loud – Rules we know exist but we constantly ignore

The human animal, and maybe animals in general, learn from our own experience. Even though we know we should benefit from other’s mistakes, and the smarter amongst us do just that, some of us have to make our own mistakes for a lesson to sink in.

This put me in mind of the way Indian families supposedly didn’t tell infants not to do things like touching the fire. It was assumed, and proven to be true, they’d quickly learn why you don’t touch fire. Some of us aren’t that smart.

This past weekend I once again proved how incredibly stupid we can be. At the same time I made a rather amazing self discovery. I’m going to run through a few of my more memorable learning sessions which I’m positive will generate similar memories everyone reading this.

Basic Rule of working with Solvents. Have plenty of ventilation

It was last Sunday and I needed to clean a brush I’d been using for applying stain so I could use it to lay down some urethane on a plywood sheet. Doing a casual search of the shop I found an ancient can of thinner that had been sitting around, which I didn’t think about at the time. Having 110 degrees in the shop is pretty normal for part of the year. Looking back, that thinner had been sitting in the shop for at least 15-20 years.

When I accidentally spilled some thinner on the steel bench top, I thought it weird that it didn’t evaporate immediately as it usually does. I actually had to wipe it off. Oh, well! I thought it had lost it’s solvent magic and kept dunking and cleaning the brush. I was standing in front of an open garage door with a fan behind me, so, the air was flowing and I thought all was good in solvent land.

I was dunking away when I felt like the need to sit down, which happens a lot these days. I just run out of steam. So, I started for the office door at the other end of the shop.

Next thing I knew I was face down on the garage floor puking my guts out and my stepson, who had been at the other end of the shop was trying to talk to me. Apparently, I’d passed out, landing on my back puking. He rolled me on my side and screamed for The Redhead to call 911. When I came to some minutes later, I was still spitting puke but felt absolutely fine. Totally normal. However, I knew something had happened and decided to lay there a while longer.

The fire station is less than a mile away and the EMTs had me surrounded in a matter of minutes talking EMT talk and doing EMT things. Then everything got comical. I’m still face down on the concrete, and I hear one of the EMTs say to one of the others, “Is that a Garand on the wall?”

Still face down, I loudly say, “No that’s a 98 Mauser. Go through the door right behind me into the office, walk past the couch and you’ll see a Garand leaning against it.”

He disappeared and one of the other guys said, “It looks like he’s puking up fiberglass insulation.”

Still face on the floor, I see the lump he’s talking about and I say, “No, that’s my breakfast oatmeal laced with blue berries. It came out as a chunk.”

The guy in the office comes out. He is holding something and says “Is this a real grenade?”

Still face down I say, “Are there threads in the hole in the bottom?”

He says, “No.”

I rely, “Then it’s a replica.”

All the other EMTs start babbling about the stuff on the walls of the garage and file into the office taking a tour, while two of them continue doing tests on me still laying on the floor.

Finally, they decide to toss me in the ambulance and give me a ride, so I nimbly pop up, feeling fine, saying the trip is unnecessary. In about two seconds, the Redhead (Aka Marlene), convinced everyone within earshot, neighbors included, that I was going to the hospital whether I wanted to or not. So, I did. They did the ER thing, conducted every medical test I’ve ever heard of and spit me out ready to go home a couple of hours later. One of the funnier things was me, a gray dog being fussed over in an ER, having passed out and puked but my blood pressure was still 122/74. Just another day in life.

This stuff was thick, almost like syrup. I guess being constantly heated beefed it up

I learned three VERY important things from that episode.

1. When a firetruck and an ambulance are parked in the driveway, it’s a waste of time to argue with the Redhead about going to the hospital.

2. The thing about working with fumes is apparently true. Once again I didn’t pay enough attention to a common sense rule.

3. Later, both my stepson and Marlene were complaining bitterly about the super strong smell of the stuff I was cleaning the brush with. Apparently 15 years of 100-degree heat had fortified it which is why it was thick and didn’t want to evaporate. They did everything they could to keep the smell out of the house. The next day, when our handyman/friend showed up, the can was sitting in the driveway by the garbage can and he too was complaining about the smell. The most important thing I learned out of this whole episode was that APPARENTLY, MY SENSE OF SMELL THAT COVID KILLED TWO YEARS AGO HAS NEVER COME BACK. I didn’t smell it at all. Not even a bit. I now realize I can’t smell ANYTHING. Not coffee, nothing! And I hadn’t even noticed it was gone. Hmmm…

About rags used for staining

Some years ago a gigantic explosion right outside our bedroom at 0330 almost blew us out of bed. The wall opposite the bed is a glass door opening into a tiny patio with a 10-foot wall around it. Looking through the door and over the patio wall I could see flames on the house next door.

We leaped out of bed and, as I’m struggling into my jeans, I hear someone banging on our front gate and yelling “Your house is on fire, your house is on fire!”

You have no idea how quickly you wake up when you hear that!

We went screaming out the front door into the front yard and find roaring flames literally three stories high. Eventually we had two fire trucks and neighbors from as far as two blocks away who heard the bang. However, the fire wasn’t on the the actual house. It was a stack of 4 x 6 wooden beams and 140 2x4’s that were trimmed and ready to replace the old ones that frame our entry way. They were stacked against the end of the house on sawhorses where they were drying from having been stained the day before.

We had violated a rule we’ve all seen a million times. “Store stain rags in metal containers as they may combust spontaneously.” The rags were wadded up and laying on the ground under the two-foot-high sawhorses. They had definitely combusted. The flames were leaping up the slump block wall of the house, which was the only wall in the entire structure that didn’t have a window or an overhang. So, all the flames did is scorch some paint and crack a few blocks.

The bang we heard was the gas meter on that wall exploding. The gas guys had it replaced in less than an hour. When their supervisor showed up a couple hours later, I told him it had exploded and he said that was impossibe. They were designed not to do that. I pointed out the hand sized hole in the meter laying on the ground and he didn’t say another word. I’ve since found that the explosion was the result of faulty plumping inside the meter and he knew it and didn’t want to argue.

Don’t pick up wounded animals

When I was about 12 I came screaming into my doctor’s office with a squirrel firmly affixed to my left index finger. That’s the only time someone at the desk didn’t ask, “Can I help you?” My doctored fixed the situation by strong arming the squirrel with a medical book that was about 3 inches thick. The squirrel had been hit by a car, so I picked it up by the tail to put it in my bike basket, followed shortly by a rapid trip to my doctor’s a block away. I’ve told my kids not to do that but my daughter did it anyway with a ground hog. Same result. We never learn.

Always clamp pieces down that are to be drilled on a drill press

I was just out of high school and doing my first serious paid car job. I was building what was then called a Kooky Car, now a T-bucket that a local rich kid wanted built. He had walked into the local Chevy dealer and ordered a grand new Corvette engine complete with four speed trans.

I was rushed and was making a trans mount crossmember out of ¼” 4 x 4 steel angle. I was trying to get it finished that night and had torched slots in it for the mount bolts intending to drill a series of 3/8” holes through the jagged slots to clean them up. Being impatient, after torching, I dunked the piece in water to cool it off, which, of course, made the edges of the slots hard as hell. Being in a hurry I didn’t clamp the piece down to drill it and figured it was long enough I could just hold it.

Do I need to tell the rest? It whipped around slicing my arm deeply three times. A very comical run to the emergency room for surgical repair where the arm was so numb from the impact they hardly needed to numb it. I watched as they put 80 stitches or so in it starting on the muscles and tendons working their way out. It had really been whacked.

You know what they say about scars: They are tattoos with better stories

I’m running out of space so I won’t get into the reasons why it’s not smart to shoot .22 cartridges with a BB gun. Or just because something you just cut off with a cutting torch has turned black doesn’t mean it’s cool. When your fingers are sizzling, they’re trying to tell you something.

If someone really young is reading this, just think about all you have to look forward to. If adults are reading this (you may be one but you don’t have to act like one) you’ve already violated enough of those rules that you know exactly where I’m coming from and you have your own stories. Lemme hear ‘em!

See you next week. bd