Ouch!

I have been building an addition onto the house for....a while now. I have, until yesterday, been injury free. I'm talking about the self inflicted kind. I have a habit of doing bad things to myself, and I have impressed myself with my restraint. Up until last night, that is. I had to put some A35s on the rafters to connect to the ridge beam. They weren't on the drawings, and I have a BIG beam that the ridge beam sits on, and the rafters have birds mouth cuts to follow the profile, but the inspector said to put em in, and he wrote it down, so I had to do it. I waited till it was dusk, and I waited for a hot day, and I waited till the night before the inspection. All big warning signals. It was hot, and dark, and I was sweaty, and I was in a hurry. Oh, and I was perched on the top of a 6ft ladder in a room with an 11.5 foot cathedral ceiling. Smart. I should have my own TV show. Probably cable. One with lots of liability insurance.

I am left handed, so it gets to wield the hammer. It is a strong, agressive hand, and it likes the sound of nails being driven into wood. The right hand is the crazy cousin. For some reason, it always takes a beating. I was swinging the hammer with the left, while the right did that timing thing to hold the hold down in place just until the hammer got there and then let go quickly and scurry to safety. Well, the index finger has been at this for a long time, and knows damn well when to get the hell out, but the middle finger, the defiant one (think hand signals), always takes his time, daring the left hand to do his worst. He did. Bastard. He smacked it on the side so hard it split open, right along the stitch line from when I shattered it while water skiing. (see- accident prone...). It literally split open in a sickening splat sound. I cursed, and of course, the kids heard. And the bolder one acually started calling out the word. "Dad said ****" I had to say it again because it hurt so much. So did the great red bold one.

I made a huge effort not to bleed all over the place, and at the same time not fall off the ladder. That would have been great. I fall, die, and then bleed out through my finger. I can almost see the chalk outline on the plywood, with a big red stain at the finger. Hmm. That might make a great picture. And a great gag. Imagine, twenty years from now, the new owner (assuming the boys don't burn the house down) takes up the flooring to put down carpet and finds that. "WTF! That wasn't in the disclosures......" But that would pique the interest of the inspector, and we want him out of here as soon as possible, becuase the more time he spends here, the more likely he will notice some of the "creative" solutions in play.

BTW I failed the inspection this morning. I did everything that was listed on the notes sheet from the last failure, but this was a different inspector, and he noticed something the other guy didn't. I can live with it, but I want to get this project done with so I can move on to other projects. But first, I have to have a long talk with my hands. Stop hitting each other. Sit still.
Don't break things. Sort of the same things I am always saying to the boys. If you don't hear from me for a while, I was observed having said conversation sans another human being, and have been placed on psych watch. I think it's 72 hours now. Might be a nice to have some alone time, come to think of it.

Remember, in any construction project, you only need one yes. I just hope it doesn't take a thousand nos to get there..... There's a parallel. Construction and dating.