After my mission in 99, I returned home and secured employment with a family connection working for a small construction company in Idaho. We built most of a house before I was pulled off the job to build 2 large potato cellars (It was Idaho you know). During that summer I became friends with a few of the other guys on the crew and we hung out after work some, going golfing, boating, or to going to single adult activities.
It was that summer that I was introduced to the nail gun. The other guys on the crew would tell stories about who nailed what body part with the nail gun. Our boss once nailed his knee while kneeling down and it locked it in place. He was up on the roof at the time and somehow he had to be brought to the hospital to have it removed. Or one of my friends told me about the time he nailed two of his fingers together. The stories abounded and I guess it was only time before I had my run in with the nail gun. I ended up shooting my self near the palm of the hand right where the thumb begins. I hurriedly pulled it out and the veteran carpenter who was with me looked at me like "Why did you stop nailing?" And I held up my hand and he sees the nail sticking out from my glove and he says "hold on" and starts to set down whatever he was holding. We'll not wanting someone else to pull the nail out I quickly yanked it out with my un-maimed hand. I was lucky. It didn't go very deep at all for my thumb bone had stopped it in its path through my hand. It really would have wigged me out to see it going in one side and coming out the other, so I'm glad it didn't go that far. Now if I had only shot myself that summer, that would have been one thing. But to have shot one of my friends is another.
Greg was watching me nail some boards with the nail gun a month or two later and was standing above me looking down at the brace boards I was nailing in place. I didn't have the vantage point that he did so I had to guess where the other side of the board was I was nailing, then when I was finished, I could look on the other side to see how many nails had missed the board. We'll doing this one time he make a comment that I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and I playfully went for his foot with the nail gun. To my shock I had the trigger held down so that when the barrel of the nail gun touches against something, it fires a nail. It did so at this time nailing my friends foot to the board he was standing on. He couldn't move. It took me a second to realize what I had done, then that sickening feeling of horror mixed with embarrassment washed through my body. How could I have been so stupid and careless! "Oh my gosh Greg did I get you!" I couldn't quite tell if it had gone through the end of his foot near his toes or if there were some slim chance it had gone between two of his toes. He stood there dumbfounded and said in shock "I, I uh, I don't know!" We quickly got the attention of the whole crew and Brian one of the veteran workers came over with his cats claw to retrieve the nail. If blood came out on the end of the nail, that would be the tell tell sign. Brian gracefully withdrew the nail, and it was bloodless! Greg then removed his foot from the shoe and there was just a minimal amount of blood on his sock as the nail had luckily scraped the side of one of his toes as it passed by. Tis just a scratch and not a flesh wound like we had all feared. I was so relieved yet now the wave of embarrassment was reaching its peak. I was wishing that I could be one of the kids in "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and shrink down to the size of an ant. Of course my friend would probably have squished me, so he just decked me in the face and broke my nose instead. Okay okay, he didn't hit me and didn't break my nose. But that adds more drama to the story. He quickly forgave me and we finished out the rest of the summer without any more accidents.
For the record, my wife has heard me tell the story briefly many times and it frustrates her how I tell people I shot my friend in the foot with a nail gun and nailed him to a board. She points out that I didn't shoot him in the foot, just the shoe. While she is right, I tell the story as it seemed when I was going through it. I had indeed thought I had shot him through the foot. To tell the story the other way would be like hearing a story backwards. "I shot my friend's shoe with a nail gun.(People not amazed at story) His foot was in the shoe at the time (This story is boring). The foot was slid perfectly so that two toes were placed between the nail. (Can you shoot me with a nail gun?) How lucky we were that I didn't shoot his foot with the gun huh? (Can you please tell me an accounting story? That would be more exciting.)
I am an accountant. I have to hold on to the precious story gems of my youth. Remind me sometime to write about lacerating calves (green cheerios) or castrating pigs. I couldn't believe what a huge hit these stories were at work when I told my co-workers here in the D.C. area! When you tell another Idaho farmer a story like that, they don't even bat an eye.
It was that summer that I was introduced to the nail gun. The other guys on the crew would tell stories about who nailed what body part with the nail gun. Our boss once nailed his knee while kneeling down and it locked it in place. He was up on the roof at the time and somehow he had to be brought to the hospital to have it removed. Or one of my friends told me about the time he nailed two of his fingers together. The stories abounded and I guess it was only time before I had my run in with the nail gun. I ended up shooting my self near the palm of the hand right where the thumb begins. I hurriedly pulled it out and the veteran carpenter who was with me looked at me like "Why did you stop nailing?" And I held up my hand and he sees the nail sticking out from my glove and he says "hold on" and starts to set down whatever he was holding. We'll not wanting someone else to pull the nail out I quickly yanked it out with my un-maimed hand. I was lucky. It didn't go very deep at all for my thumb bone had stopped it in its path through my hand. It really would have wigged me out to see it going in one side and coming out the other, so I'm glad it didn't go that far. Now if I had only shot myself that summer, that would have been one thing. But to have shot one of my friends is another.
Greg was watching me nail some boards with the nail gun a month or two later and was standing above me looking down at the brace boards I was nailing in place. I didn't have the vantage point that he did so I had to guess where the other side of the board was I was nailing, then when I was finished, I could look on the other side to see how many nails had missed the board. We'll doing this one time he make a comment that I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and I playfully went for his foot with the nail gun. To my shock I had the trigger held down so that when the barrel of the nail gun touches against something, it fires a nail. It did so at this time nailing my friends foot to the board he was standing on. He couldn't move. It took me a second to realize what I had done, then that sickening feeling of horror mixed with embarrassment washed through my body. How could I have been so stupid and careless! "Oh my gosh Greg did I get you!" I couldn't quite tell if it had gone through the end of his foot near his toes or if there were some slim chance it had gone between two of his toes. He stood there dumbfounded and said in shock "I, I uh, I don't know!" We quickly got the attention of the whole crew and Brian one of the veteran workers came over with his cats claw to retrieve the nail. If blood came out on the end of the nail, that would be the tell tell sign. Brian gracefully withdrew the nail, and it was bloodless! Greg then removed his foot from the shoe and there was just a minimal amount of blood on his sock as the nail had luckily scraped the side of one of his toes as it passed by. Tis just a scratch and not a flesh wound like we had all feared. I was so relieved yet now the wave of embarrassment was reaching its peak. I was wishing that I could be one of the kids in "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and shrink down to the size of an ant. Of course my friend would probably have squished me, so he just decked me in the face and broke my nose instead. Okay okay, he didn't hit me and didn't break my nose. But that adds more drama to the story. He quickly forgave me and we finished out the rest of the summer without any more accidents.
For the record, my wife has heard me tell the story briefly many times and it frustrates her how I tell people I shot my friend in the foot with a nail gun and nailed him to a board. She points out that I didn't shoot him in the foot, just the shoe. While she is right, I tell the story as it seemed when I was going through it. I had indeed thought I had shot him through the foot. To tell the story the other way would be like hearing a story backwards. "I shot my friend's shoe with a nail gun.(People not amazed at story) His foot was in the shoe at the time (This story is boring). The foot was slid perfectly so that two toes were placed between the nail. (Can you shoot me with a nail gun?) How lucky we were that I didn't shoot his foot with the gun huh? (Can you please tell me an accounting story? That would be more exciting.)
I am an accountant. I have to hold on to the precious story gems of my youth. Remind me sometime to write about lacerating calves (green cheerios) or castrating pigs. I couldn't believe what a huge hit these stories were at work when I told my co-workers here in the D.C. area! When you tell another Idaho farmer a story like that, they don't even bat an eye.
1 comment:
eww! gross.lol :-)
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