10.10.2012

Eyes are the window to your soul

TheGuy is a handy guy. Really handy. Like, really, really handy.

He does his own oil changes, changes the belts on his car, he builds work benches and, well, I mean, he also repairs and restores guitars for a living, so I guess that's the big indicator that he might have some finesse in the workshop.

Me. Not so much. I've been pretty spoiled having theGuy around. And I mean, it's not that I have no skillz at all when it comes to being handy - I am pretty resourceful. I can work a drill with the best of 'em. I can hammer like magic. I have had my eyes on an awesome pink work belt because I feel like it'll totally be a fashionable move towards feminism.
This can be purchased for me, here
It's the power tools that freak me out. Aside from a drill, basically anything that makes a loud sound when it's on is more frightening than coming face-to-face with that weird plastic-surgery cat woman. Seriously freaked.

Better than a band-saw.

The weird thing is that I loved nothing more than helping my dad in his workshop as a kid. I wanted to get my hands dirty. I love the smell of sawdust and wood (wood is GOOD!). But I was a home-ec kind of girl. I could bake cookies like a pro, clean that kitchen til it shone, sew up a storm (kinda. Okay. If you weren't looking too closely at the seams, it was all good), and craft with the best of 'em! I remember being excited for shop class in grade 7 and thinking of all the awesome shelves and things I was going to make, and how everyone was going to admire me for being such a bad ass chick and making such masterpieces. What could've happened that eager girl?

Oh yeah.

Mr. P.

My shop teacher in grade 7, Mr. P., well, he was a colourful character. All the students loved him. I believe he was legally deaf after all the years working in a junior high workshop. He couldn't simply speak; he yelled, and he could rarely hear you the first time you spoke. You wouldn't want to ask a question when he was explaining how something worked, because he'd YELL at you to "SPEAK UP". At 12 years old, obviously awkward and self-conscious, I didn't talk much in his class (which is pretty much a miracle).

Mr. P had been in a car accident as a young adult, which had left him with missing fingers, a damaged left side of his face, and a glass eye (I swear, this was from a car accident, not from shop class).

More than once, he would sneak up behind an unsuspecting student, pop his glass eye out, covering the socket with a dirty handkerchief, and hold it on the shoulder of said student while booming "I'VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU."

Ew! Okay - so, I googled "Glass Eye" just now so I could toss one into this post, and people - just don't do it. It's not a good idea, trust me.

 He would open the garage door and stand at the back so he could smoke while he supervised the class. A bunch of 7th graders. Using equipment with blades.

My mom was totally comfortable with all of this.


Mr. P. talked about safety, safety, safety. He'd explain the horrific results of improper safety when using the shop equipment, and would use his middle finger (the index was missing) to point out the machines which could leave you short a digit. He shared stories of scalping (keep your hair tied up!), of people's clothes being stuck in the machines, of pieces of wood flying back and taking you with them.. his safety lessons were all about shock value.

One day when it was exceptionally cold (he'd been smoking out the garage door again), I was shivering, so he made me wear his sweater. The sleeves went down to my knees, and it was totally mortifying to wear your shop teacher's cigarette, wood and bad-scented-cologne sweater. Not only was it so not fair because the boys in my class were laughing at me, but I was terrified that the arms were going to get caught in a machine, and Mr. P. kept warning me: "ADAIR!" (he didn't use first names), "Watch the sleeves or it'll rip your arm off!"


Ah, Mr. P. I think I've found the culprit.No band saws for this gal. It's a good thing theGuy is handy!

1 comment:

Whatcha talkin' 'bout Willis?