Unmitigated Co-dependants.

So there I am, minding my own business, working hard and trying to get as much of the stuff from my office loaded onto the trailer as possible. Nothing is going to go wrong today--it's only the light stuff and the stuff we never or hardly ever use. The extra table, the tool-chest, the shelves from the closet. The drying rack and the welding equipment and tanks.

The last two were the start of it all. For those that don't know, let me describe to you the two pieces of equipment to which I make reference. First, is 'welding equipment'--consisting of a Medusa-Nest of hoses connected to gauges that connect to two heavy tanks marked very prominently "Flamable". The second piece of equipment is the drying rack, a seven-foot tall by six foot squared system of stacked wire 'shelves' onto which can be loaded any number of signs or teeshirts. Each shelf rotates upward in its metal slip to allow easy access to the shelf beneath it. Metal slip. Sharp, non-serated, razor edge.

A series of them, in fact, that--when the shelves are removed--looks remarkably like the chain of a chainsaw.

So here I am, masculine, strapping man that I am, having to prove how strong and tough I am to my hunter-fisherman type boss and the guy who helps us with signs. I've just wrestled the 80+ lbs. welding tanks onto the trailer and am about to lay the dolly on which they are standing down. DOWN we go with the handle to rest it on the floor of the trailer and BOOM. There is a one-and-a-half inch by half-inch blade in my thumb.

It only took a second. Less, really. Half a second. Half a second in which I registered the image of my thumb impaled at the knuckle, ripped it up and saw blood. I immediately had enough sense to pull it up and shriek, though it didn't quite hurt. I shrieked more from the thought...and the foreknowledge that it was *going* to hurt in the very very near future.

My boss looks up, all within the same second, and says--as I burst through the door and down the hall to the bathroom, my wounded thumb gripped in a vice of pressure of my left hand--"I saw blood!"

I get to the restroom, turn on the water, and remove my hand. Boom. Blood. Everywhere. I run water over it. Hoping against hope that it is but a flesh wound. No. So I do what I know must be done next.

We'll pause here to note the obvious lack of any mention of pain. That's because it hasn't hurt *at all* until what happened next.

I opened it to rinse the wound. And that's when a hundred thousand nerve endings in my thumb, when separated from the nerve *next* to them, shouted in unison "HEY! WHERE DID MY FRIEND GO!?!?!?!?!"

If you ever wondered, that is what a nerve is saying. The nerve misses its buddy...compadre, mi amigo, mon ami. That trusted companion that looks at it every so often and says "Hey...here's some info."

As I rinsed the cut and shouted very loudly and silently, I knew exactly the pain that Michael Corleone felt at the end of Godfather III...that pain that is so vast that when you open your mouth, no sound escapes. And in walks the co-worker. "How bad is it?"

"I think it needs stitches," I reply.

He glances into the sink and sees only the cut. "Nah. It'll be okay." But he hasn't seen what I've seen...the glaring white within the gaping wound. Exposed bone.

But we're being a man, right? No pain no gain. Gotta be strong, lest The Boss--who brags about removing the end of his pinky with a skill saw only to duct-tape it back on until it healed--shout "J'accuse! J'accuse mon petite employee. YOU, my friend, are a wuss!"

"I don't need stitches. Just a paper towel and some masking tape."

Five bandages and thirty-six hours later, I can now slightly move it, and can bare to hit the space bar, though my typing still needs work. The best thing, though, is that my codependant nerves are reunited with their cohorts and are again exchanging information--even if it is "Hey! Heartbeat. Throb."

Crooked Sticks and Windshear. (or, Polo sans Horse.)

Golf is either the most wonderful or the most demented sport ever invented. I can't over-estimate how difficult it is to successfully play the game. Well, play the game may be too strong a word. Make no mistakes about it: golf is work.

That's probably why my grandfather--who golfs three times a week--doesn't consider himself 'retired.' He'll tell people "I work three times a week--I play golf on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays." He's right. "Work" in the traditional sense involves for most people sitting at a desk, performing tasks. Or perhaps it is walking from desk-to-desk, delivering, helping, or otherwise fixing things. For an elite group, it involves flying from place to place--sitting on a plane. But then there is golf.

Golf seems so nice and leisurely. You walk up to a mundane little ball, hit it with what looks like a mini-polo stick, and then get in the cart. Watch it on TV and you'd wonder why these guys are so unsure about raising their hands. Why do they even break a sweat?

But look at the *courses*.

Those are trees. Hills, rivers, rocky rock beds, woods, desert.

And right at the end, the 'Green'.

Green, as in pastoral. Calm. Sweet. Right there. Flat. The green green grass of home, the green of the payout.

The green of envy when you're ball misses it, short by twenty yards.

The green with sickness as the perfect shot doesn't 'bite' and bounces twenty yards past the 'green'. Yes the green. Complete with a little hole.

Now we'll digress here for a minute. Golf is a sport definitely invented by a man. After all, we are to use our 'club' to get our 'ball' (which is ironically white), into the 'hole.' Eighteen times. But like sex, men rarely get the ball in the hole eighteen times in a row without the help of alcohol. Thus the 'club house.' Ah, the Mt. Olympus of the Course. Set back, right at the first tee, the 9th Green, and 18th green. Now ask yourself this: how butch is a sport where you are expected to take a break *before* you play, during your play, and *after* your play?

The little hole. That thing that is guarded by a placid pond and a desert. Barren. Dry. Unpromising and unforgiving. And then, just when you think it's falling apart, that the world has tilted off its axis and that your entire existence is going to end, you hit it...the perfect shot. Straight, not too long and not to short, right at the pin. You know that this is it. You raise your arms, unashamed in your glory to show your sweat-stained shirt. The ball soars higher, then it archs, and the descent begins. Still on line. Your heart has stopped and you know that, in that one perfect second before the ball lands, the entire universe is aligned in your favor.

And then the ball lands...on the divot left by the dick who walked onto the course from his back yard...and bounces. Hard. Left. And into the water.