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Bonked

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On Sunday, I texted a friend to see if I could drop off a book for her.  I knew she’d be there but figured I should give her a heads’ up anyway.  She returned my text and asked if I would mind helping her with a quick project when I stopped by.  I said “sure” because any time she does ask me for assistance, it’s not usually much assistance.  And, of course, my schedule is now “fluid”….

The project was changing the lightbulb in an outdoor light fixture.  Sounds easy enough but the light fixture is above the side door, which is itself at the top of four stairs.  We needed the tall ladder for this.  Opened up the ladder didn’t fit on the top step.  It didn’t fit over the steps either.  Leaning the ladder up right under the light fixture didn’t seem like a good idea since its full weight would be on the glass of the side door; we ended up shifting half of the weight to the left door lintel (is that the right word?). 

My friend was nervous about this procedure and although I volunteered (it wasn’t quite high enough up to trigger my fear of heights) she insisted.  Unfortunately it did frighten her and her hands shook enough that she dropped the screw a couple of times.  After the second drop we decided we’d better test the light before trying again.  She came down the ladder and I swiveled it out of the way so she could go inside to flip the light switch.  It was then that I got a very hard and painful thump on the head – she had left the screwdriver on the top of the ladder and it tumbled right off onto me. 

It broke the skin and my friend was really worried that I’d been stabbed with the business end of screwdriver (it was a Phillips).  We applied a paper towel and a small ice pack.   I was sure I’d been thumped by the handle.  There wasn’t all that much blood and a good stab would have bled more.  The physics were also on my side.  It was about a 4 foot drop from the top of the ladder to my head and the weight of the handle was enough that, like a cat, it would have righted itself and hit me handle first.

After a few minutes we finished up the job.  Fourth time was a charm; I tried again to take over the ladder climbing but after I’d been injured helping with her project, she was adamant that I stay off the ladder. 

No headache, no pain, no other symptoms.  I do have a scab now that I’m trying to avoid with the comb and the shampooing but my brush with the screwdriver doesn’t seem to have damaged me permanently. 

What hand tool would make the best weapon if you needed to protect yourself?

67 thoughts on “Bonked”

  3. I’d go with a long crowbar (24-30 inches or more). “Sharp” on one end for stabbing, heavy enough to inflict serious hurt, agile enough to swing like a baseball bat, suitable for parrying sword thrusts in a fencing duel :-). And if it’s rusty and you inflict a bleeding wound, the rust might infect the wound and give the attacker lockjaw. 🙂

    Chris in Owatonna

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      1. I had some vague notion that it was a fire fighting thing, but couldn’t really remember for sure so I also had to look it up. Boy that’s one nasty looking tool.

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  6. Sounds like we need a visit from Safety Officer Rafferty.
    In the meantime, Forklift Operator Klaus will have to do. I show this to the theater students. Not that we have forklifts, but the whole principle of keeping your head on a swivel applies.

    Chris’ idea of the crowbar is good. Hammer was my first thought. One with the ‘ripping claw’ too. What a great question! Sorry about the head injury.

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  7. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I agree with the comments above, turning tools into weapons.

    Mine would be a hat pin. Women in the past wearing large hats would use the hat pins to ward off unwanted “suitors” quite effectively. The hat pin was easily available, difficult to see,and inflict pain.

    But this would also necessitate wearing a large hat. I think in my case that is doubtful.

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      1. There’s a great scene in “McClintock” (a movie which I detest on principal, but can’t stay away from). Anyway, at some mine a fight breaks out between the good guys and the bad guys – Maureen O’Hara pulls her large hat pin out of her hat and proceeds to do a lot of damage with it.

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        2. There is a similar John Wayne movie called Donovan’s Reef. I think it too may have a scene where he spanks a woman, not sure. But full of racial stereotypes. But it has one scene I prize and want to show to my church. The local island small church leaks but everytime people give the priest money to fix it, he gives the money to the poor. “There is so much need,” he says. My church a dozen years ago had to do some major mechanical and strucural work at about $350,000. But they also decided to redo the front. The building did look nothing like a church. What idiots approved that plan, plus about 28% of the floor plan are hallways, mostly pointless hallways. They did not fix the hallways but they did make the church look like a church and not a bottling plant, but at a cost of $1.3 on top of $350,000. The congregation is now too small for the grand size. Too small for the debt. Now a decade later a $1.1 million debt still lingers. For the fourth time they have brought in experts to raise the money from the congregation. How much are they paying for this? I know more than myself are upset about what they are doing. We all got fancy tote bags and water bottles hung on our doors. Very expensive ones. And we are all invited to a grand buffet to make pledges. A stupid architectural plan led to a riduculous expenditure they should have known they could not carry which leads to paying large expenditures of church money to try to get us to pledge to pay off the debt.
          Tell me that there is not “so much need” right now, Would they let me go read the Sermon on the Mount to them?

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  8. the tools in my toolbox as a weapon she asks
    what a image it contours up in my mind
    i wander through drawers and buckets and shelves
    tools of death and destruction i find

    a claw hammer sledge hammer or maxwells ballpeen
    or the big wooden mallet would do
    a drill or a router i can just hear the shouter
    like the marathon man’s drilled out tooth

    a crow bar is a favorite a tire iron too
    a pitchfork a torch or a blade
    a chain saw a skill saw a rip saw would work
    all in different ways come to your aid

    how bout a bag full of sockets
    against your soft curly lockers
    or a pry bar laid upside your head
    a trowel or a spade
    would appear custom made
    for helping me make sure that you’re dead

    a post hole diggers is bigger
    would be dandy by jiggers
    but a hatchet or axe seem so natural
    but when it comes to dong harm
    with a bunch of tools in my arm
    i’d like to bring a whole satchel full

    my welders just sitting there
    oh think of the burning hair
    and my loppers could snip off some stuff
    i’ve got to admit
    when it comes down to it
    choosing tools of destruction is tough

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  9. All this talk of hammers brings to mind the song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” by the Beatles. I don’t know how to post You Tube videos but I’m sure someone out there does.

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  10. I have a couple of wooden swords in my play therapy room that I could use in a pinch with an out of control adult, as well as a handful or two of sand from my therapeutic sand tray thrown right in the eyes. It is extremely fine sand. A pointy letter opener could work ok, too.

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  11. Wasn’t it Alfred Hitchcock who came up with a murder of someone with a leg of lamb to the head, and then the murderer cooked the lamb and served it to the detectives so they ate the evidence?

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  12. My nominations, mostly showing off tools I know from my childhood:
    Hardy, you would have to be damn cleaver to make this work.
    Snath, only dangerous with the blade attached.
    Pike pole, yes, like ancient weapon but a tool today used in logging where I know it, fire fighting, orchards. Much more wicked thing today.
    Hookaroon, pickaroon in my day. Logging tool. Vicious from-behind tool.
    Bale hook, wicked.
    Broad axe, heavy, hard to wield, but lots of damage.
    Spud, harmless. Cement tool.
    Manure fork or pitch fork.
    Hay saw.
    Blow torch.
    Sickle bar from a mower. Hard to wield but very dangerous. Right, Ben?
    Did anyone mention chisels p, cold or wood?
    Why the dog photo?
    Clyde

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    1. Clyde, if you’re going with the sickle bar, you better have gloves for yourself.
      You got a scythe? What about a those large old saws? What did you call a one man version of a two-man crosscut saw?
      Given enough time, I could coat the floor with a grease gun.
      Leaf Blower?

      I wonder too, what’s with the dog? Other than injuries?

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        1. I’ve got a two man saw in the rafters. Never used it or seen it used.
          Two man saw was the equivalent of ‘hold the flashlight’.

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        4. When two people get the rhythm right, it is a joyous tool. It is easy, it flows ba k and forth, sawdust sprays out. You cut through almost like a chain saw. But when they don’t, it gets ugly. Of course the teeth have to be sharp and the set has to be right. My father was a genius at both.

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    3. Dog photo because I feel like I need one of these cones of shame to keep myself from brushing my head or comb I may head, or even scratching my head (where the scab is).

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  15. Current theory on Sandy is that she has an infection. Took samples. But no treatment until tomorrow so sure I will be back tonight to deal with her sundowning, trying to calm her, get her to take meds, which took a long time last night, and get her to go to bed.

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    2. Tested positive. Drugs prescribed but she cannot penecillin. Will not get to her until tomorrow. They did not call me over. Madi is very good with her

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  19. OT: dangerous tools. The first one I thought of- only Clyde mentioned it, or did Tim.? He must have. Wendy Glover went in the shed for a screwdriver for her dad, and came out with her hand bleeding. “I cut my hand on it!” That’s because it was a chisel. I was amazed at her, a country girl too.
    Our local church is the only one to have the name St Heiritha’s(High ritha). She’s the patrkn saint of Chittlehampton, and was murdered with scythes by unbelieving workers. Heiritha’s Brook runs from the spring that – well, sprung up where her blood flowed. So they say. Dad delighted in debunking the scythe story. “You try killing someone with a scythe.” He maintained, hold the handle horizontal in the killing stance, and the blade’s angled downwards. Most inconvenient. Far better just to use a hook (sickle), it’s probably unnecessary to explain why. I hate to agree with him, but I do.
    I don’t think Tim mentioned planes. Now this method is hard to set up accurately, but my brother nearly managed it. He and I and his school friend Pete, were renovating a cottage in Wales, a disastrous episode for us all really. We’d got most of the roof on, and for some reason Neil had to go along the ridge and do something or other to the apex of the trusses, with a plane. Pete and I stood side by side for a moment, looking up from the ground to see how he was getting on, and he chose that moment to let MY smoothing plane slip out of his hand. It slid down the roof and passed close to Pete’s shoulder,before hitting the ground and breaking in two. It could easily have killed Pete if it had hit his head.
    Later, a guy connected with the job, Dowi, said “Pity it missed”. He had a good point, I mean, it probably wouldn’t have broken if it had hit him.

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  20. Chittlehampton Church tower is one hundred and fourteen feet high, the highest village church in Devon.

    ” ****** for height
    Kings Nympton for beauty
    Chittlehampton for both”

    ****** I can never remember which church this is. Nowhere important.

    I am anti pretty much anything you can think of. The church, religion, Royalty, the Establishment. But I’m proud of St Heiritha’s Church.

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    1. I’m really getting the hang of Google. I fact checked all this. It’s the second tallest. Either in the” village ” or” all of Devon” category, I forget which, and now I can’t find it again. It’s Hieritha. Not Heiritha. (Shame).
      St Heiritha’s is considered by many to be the finest church tower in England. I had no idea. I’m prouder than ever. Pilgrims came from far and wide to see the place of Hieritha’s martyrdom, and donated enough money to build this church. That was stupid. But I’m proud. I’d forgotten that Hieritha was born at Stowford, where we lived for several of the best years of my life. Her brook flows into Hawkridge Brook, beside which I would like to die and be buried. Well I did know that. Maybe she knew the spot.

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