“Jim Class” is a feature that airs within The HomeFix Show. Writen by original charter show listener Jim Forrer from Caldwell Idaho, Jim shares his observations, life experiances, and lessons learned in life. Joe Prin reads these at various times in most of the HomeFix Shows. Here is the original written text.
Phalanges Fiasco
Oops, now that’s gonna hurt!
Everyone has had that little internal voice telling you ‘don’t do it, it’s wrong, you’ll get hurt’. Then you go ahead and do it anyway. Now, there’s no fixing stupid, but at least you can learn to listen to that inner voice that warns you.
I was in the process of nailing a roof rafter in place on a small shed while ignoring my inner voice. I was climbing a small step ladder to the very top. It was a precarious position to say the least. I held the rafter end in my left hand while stretching up to my full reach to get the rafter into alignment. I had the coil nail gun in hand and it’s weight along with dragging of the air hose that made things a little awkward. I continued this stupid activity, got the rafter into position and fired. I bounced the nose trigger while holding down the finger trigger. Guess what…the nail gun fired three times with the second three inch cement coated nail well placed into my index and middle fingers. The nail’s progress was stopped by my wedding band.
After all of the medical shots, xrays and the soaking in Phisohex for forty minutes, my hand looked as if I were wearing a baseball glove. The swelling was horrendous. The doctor had gone to his car to fetch a pair of large pliers, undoubtedly Channellock, to remove said nail. With the nail going in there was no pain, just a little tug so to speak. With the nail coming out, it was an all together different story.
When all procedures were completed and they were sending me home, Dr. Sandie said that he had a question. He asked,‘How many blows with the hammer did it take to get that nail all the way in like that’?