My Odd Sock

C’mon fess up!  You have done some mighty stupid things in your day.  Like the time you….yep yep.  Or the day you…oh, I remember.  And don’t forget when you did….how could I forget!

Well My Odd Sock has a whole closet FULL of less than intelligent moments.  Let’s begin by sharing just a few.

Burn Baby Burn.   Just last week I was on my patio burning some sticks that have fallen from my trees.  Seems innocent enough right?

My fire.

Think again pyromaniacs.  Not when you are tending to a campfire—and you have MS.  See, the MS has deadened the senses in my hands, arms, legs & feet.  So I have a long delay realizing if something is extremely cold….or molten hot like my campfire.  The heat of the fire singed my arm hair halfway up my forearm.  I have burns on my wrists from the fire ring.  While crackling embers “popped” and landed on my legs.  My body smoldered worse than Michael Jackson’s head in that Pepsi commercial.  Smokey the Bear looked at me in disbelief muttering “What a lame-o.”  And I learned never to light a fire without a Hazmat suit.

Smile!    A few years ago I went to the DMV to renew my drivers license.  My failing eyesight had me worried–I didn’t want to have the eyeglass restriction on my new license.  So I was determined to beat the eye test!  I pressed my face into the eye tester thingy, pushing the bar into my forehead with everything I had.  The clerk asked me to read line five.  I rattled it off like a machine gun….”E-B-S-T-D.”  Still pushing the bar with my forehead, she interrupted my concentration by saying “Sir, they’re numbers, not letters!”  “Of course they are” I said.

Passing the eye exam, I pried my forehead off the unit.  Unaware of the huge mark my intense pushing had caused, it was time to have my picture taken!  And so, for the next four years I carried a license bearing THIS Glamour Shot moment………

What an idiot

Squeeze Play.   Many years ago when I was in the 4th or 5th grade I went with my Dad to the local service station.  We were back in the service bay (Yes, this occurred when your gas station also did repairs) as my Dad was friends with the mechanics.  While they chatted, I began playing with a motorized wringer washer.  Off & on I turned the lever that put the rollers in motion.  I tilted my head to the side like a dog as I was intrigued by the sound of the rollers pressing together as they would when wringing the water from a rag.  The sound was very similar to that of a wet paint roller on a wall.  Then I wanted to touch a roller to see what it felt like.  Very VERY carefully I extended my hand to touch the moving rollers, careful as I would not want to get my finger caught in this painful torture device.

Not to worry…..as the wringer washer gobbled up my finger in a nano-second and procceded to swallow my hand, my wrist and forearm faster than the Japanese dude eats hot dogs!

I screamed in mortal agony as the wringer washer stopped mid-chew (like when you find a bone in your fish) at my elbow.  My Dad rushed me to the doctor for an X-ray.  Not broken.  My forearm turned eggplant purple and swelled to twice its size.  I had a Popeye-like forearm!

Artist's rendering

That was pretty stupid I must admit.  I am sure you have done something equally inept.  I would love to hear about it sometime but right now I must trim some branches in my trees.  Now where is that extension ladder and my chain saw?