One Piece

… At A Time…

Interesting ways to dismember, maim or even attempting to kill yourself, if only one, small piece at a time…

Stick your hand in a circular saw. Problem then is picking up your fingers to take them to casualty so that they can be sewn back on? The overall excitement of the situation can be considerably increased by running into the kitchen with handfuls of blood, and suggesting that somebody should take you to the hospital. Once the initial shock has passed and car keys found, then say ‘hold on I need to go back to the workshop and get my fingers…’

Dig a soak-away drainage pit in the side garden. If you happen to be 5 foot 10 inches tall, it is probably time to start considering your options when the shaft you have dug is at least 6 foot 6 deep and you haven’t broken through the congealed clay; particularly as there is no type of shuttering or shoring for the sides. Whilst in the bottom of the pit, with water pouring in from all around, make sure that when you are trying to hurl shovel fulls of clay above your head and out of the pit, a substantial amount falls back in, rendering you to an approximation of the creature from the black lagoon. However take heart from the fact that complete strangers at the tip, where you are taking the trailer(s) full of wet clay, keep stopping you and asking what it is you are doing as an expression of their concern for your safety. If you are lucky, some days into the project, a local builder will ask you what you are doing and when he finds out, points out that the clay is at least 30 feet thick in that locality and unless you’ve got some serious mining equipment (a shovel does not constitute serious mining equipment) it is probably best to fill it in. It is really good if you can organise the weather as well, so that it can rain for the following few days incessantly whilst you fill the hole back in with any sort of rubble you can get your hands on. However as it hasn’t stopped raining for some days, and water was pouring in from the sides of the shaft you dug, you may find that the soak-away / drainage pit is in fact now full of water, so any rubble you throw in, will cause the water to actually rise and flow all over the garden. The exact opposite of the initial idea.

Have a couple of tons of builder’s sand delivered in a torrential downpour. Make sure that the delivery truck dumps the sand in the road, essentially blocking it for passing traffic and at the same take acting as an effective dam; said road being at the bottom of a bridge on a long incline. This will allow for maximum flooding. Whilst out in the pouring rain, trying to move the mountain of sand from the road to the garden with a shovel, remember to advise any passing pedestrians or cyclists that at any moment, the back fill of water it is likely to burst forth like the proverbial deluge. Otherwise you may find the small tidal wave which accelerates down the street bowls them over like skittles, as well as washing away a considerably amount of the yet unmoved, but recently purchased sand.

Make sure that you set about installing a velux window into the kitchen extension roof just before a torrential down pour. This will necessitate you have to rush the work, as the rain starts to pour in through the gaping hole in the roof. The rain will also negate any friction that you had between your footwear and the slates, causing you to slide backwards at an ever increasing rate. You need to make sure that you are traveling at sufficient speed so that when you reach the edge of the roof your feet pass over the guttering allowing you to hurtle into the garden, relatively upright (if backwards), whilst remembering to roll as you land, save shattering any legs bones, your hips or possible spinal damage. If you are not going fast enough you may find that your feet get caught in the guttering, generating a pivotal type momentum, which then catapults you head first into the afore mentioned shrubbery (not forgetting to retrieve your trainer from the gutter once you have come to your senses). The lesson to take from this is that the friction between trainers and dry slate is stronger than gravity. As soon as it starts to rain you are essentially a victim of circumstance.

Try taking your thumb off at the base, with a leather pairing tool. Don’t bother wasting time going to casualty, getting blood all over the interior of your car: Mop up the blood, get some super-glue and paste the large triangle shaped flap of flesh back into place. Good wound management practice would then suggest that having super glued the flesh back into place, you do not then drop the lid of the glue, bend down to pick the lid up with your good hand,  using your recently glued hand on the work surface to push yourself back to your feet (the knees aren’t what they used to be you know). Modern super glues have a rapid drying time and you will find that your wounded hand is now stuck to said work surface. When you prise your hand from the work surface, you will leave the recently replaced flap of flesh behind, re-opening the wound resulting in blood gushing all over the workshop. Start again: Mop up blood, retrieve flap of flesh from work surface, re-glue back into position, and then wait for glue/hand to dry before touching anything else.

Whilst using a scalpel make sure that the blade is correctly inserted into the handle. Otherwise it may ping off. You will then spend 10 minutes hunting all over the workshop for said blade, before you notice the dribble of blood running down the bridge of your nose, onto your work. Retrieve blade from forehead and re-insert correctly into handle.

Whilst painting the guttering boards make sure that the ‘A’ frame ladder is locked into the ‘open’ position. Otherwise you may find that the ladder collapses underneath you. If this does occur it is useful to have the garage and house walls in such proximity as to enable you to ricochet off each as gravity takes effect, such that the friction from the pebble dashing will slow your descent. That way when you crash into the now reclining ladder you only suffer severe bruising rather than death. You may spend the next few days picking pebble dashing out of your head, arms, legs, shoulders and other appendages and the next weeks having to explain the bar shaped bruises that run in parallel lines from your forehead, the length of your body to your ankles. But at least scuffing your head/body against the walls on the way down slowed your fall and you probably didn’t need all of your skin anyway.

Having visited the dentist due to a wisdom tooth problem but being told that the dentist can’t see you for at least 2 weeks; going home and getting out a pair of pliers, a Dremmel power tool and a shaving mirror to have a go yourself, (whilst muttering it can’t be that difficult can it?), may not result in the intended outcome. Dentists do undertaken several years of training. However, having pulled the loose bits free with the pliers, be aware that inserting a power tool, with grinding attachment into your mouth, is increasingly complicated when the offending tooth is right at the back, on the right, which means as a right handed person you are holding the power tool in your left hand, and you are also undertaking the operation in a small shaving mirror (so everything is back to front), whilst trying to balance said mirror on a tin of paint. Remember to have suitable wadding material available for when you take huge rents out of the inside of your mouth and nearly sever your own tongue.