BrilliantEditor taught me how to use the chainsaw today. It's not as much fun as it is scary. Nevertheless, I strode forward into the great big School of Lumberjack girded in ear protection, safety goggles, and chaps. (Chaps! Can you believe it? If I had my druthers, they'd be tanned leather with the side buckles riveted onto the legs and a belt buckle that has some kind of bucking bronco on it. In this case, they're black nylon with plastic snappy-clips, but I'm on my way to greatness boys and girls.)
Since I live in the sticks, it may not be surprising that we have a chainsaw and that I'm learning to use it. Indeed, it probably should not be. But I shocked myself today with my behavior. A lumberjack I will never be, lacking certain equipment that is not issued via the usual channels, but a lumberjill, well, given my behavior today, the prospects look dim.
You see, I have this thing about wet invertebrates. Worms, slugs, grubs, larvae--anything squishy and wriggly gives me a major case of the heebie jeebies. I'm sure there are a few other things, but I'll leave it at that since I have to go to sleep soon.
I was out in the yard doing some pruning and trying to get ready to do the fall's mulching that I didn't get to in the spring or summer. I had my little pruning shears and my little red garden clogs that, at $7.99, were irresistible to me at my local Agway. So la la la, I'm out pruning and pulling and I'm standing by the roses and I'm pulling up the touch-me-nots and something very cold and slimy lands in my clog. My clog! Heavens to Betsy!
I look down, trying to reassure myself that it's a bit of root or a dirt clod in my clog. But no!
It was a big, juicy, overgrown, rain fattened, clog-loving earthworm! Gross!
So, being the strong, brave, forceful person that I am I said, "oooooh! Eee! No! oh gross! Ahh! Nmnnmm! Blehh! Eww eww eww! Ughhhhhhhh!"
That is a rough transliteration of my series of half-screams. In the process of this aria, I managed to de-clog my tootsie and run, with one shoe on, into the house where I could panic quietly without having to see grasses that looked like snakes, twigs that looked like worms, or slugs that looked like, well, slugs.
Maybe ten minutes after my pansy-banshee call, BrilliantEditor came out of his office to ask if I'd like to learn to use the chainsaw. Of course I would! But I'd only be nice about it if he would go get my shoe.
I watched from the kitchen window as my hero valiantly fought his way through the labyrinth of pulled weeds and snipped branches. He encountered my shoe, and with bravery heretofore unknown to mortal man, picked up the shoe, looked inside, shook out a mammoth worm, and brought the shoe back to me.
True love bears such things.
And still he taught me how to run the chainsaw. Oh yeah. Lumberjill, meet Dotty.
Posted by dotty at September 16, 2003 10:15 PM