You've Gotta Know When To Fold 'Em

This is yet another fun account of me doing something dumb. After considering several spiritual parallels (and even consulting my friend Lee the Enabler, who helped me edit the post) I decided to leave it as just a story. I'd be happy if you'd like to comment on what you see as allegorical in it, though.

My wife and daughter had almost finished setting up my daughter's new bed by the time I got home from work. All I had to do was obtain a couple of oddball bolts from my tub of oddball bolts (to replace the obligatory forgotten ones missing from the parts packages) and attach the headboard.

Well, that's almost all I had to do. Callie helped me dismantle the old frame before heading out to a very important ladies' shindig, about which I remember nothing because I'm a typical male, sadly. My daughter went with her and my son was at work, so the task of putting the old mattress and frame into the attic was, both figuratively and literally, on my shoulders.

As I folded the three-segment attic ladder down and listened to its squeaky voice punctuated by the the occasional "Toinnngg!!" interjection of the springs on the sides, I thought, "This attic ladder contraption is actually a remarkable achievement. I'll bet the inventor made lots of money." After I pondered it for a few seconds I mused that anyone with a rudimentary understanding of geometry could probably have figured it out eventually, so I forged ahead with my task: transporting awkwardly large objects up rickety steps through a rectangular hole in the ceiling.

It went well until I was down to only a few pieces of wooden frame leaning against the wall, sitting on a smooth laminate floor. Darn you, physics.

I had folded up the ladder to give myself some headroom as I pushed the remaining pieces a few feet down the hall. That may have been my first real mistake. Maybe I didn't wait to see if they were stable as they leaned against the wall.

Before I continue, I'd like to note that the upcoming wound healed rather nicely. No scar, even.

I reached up, grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder, and pulled it toward me, letting it swing up and over so I could catch it on the way down.

Just as the unfolding ladder was reaching the upper part of its arc before descending (seeming to hang in midair for just a moment), I heard the headboard start to slide away from the wall behind me. I instinctively lurched my head and body to the right to save the day (still holding my left hand up to catch the falling ladder), grabbed the headboard before it fell, and thought, "Oh, yeah, I rock!" and then turned back to permit the ladder to gracefully fall into my outstretched hand.

Imagine my surprise when, rather than feeling the ladder fall gently into my palm, I was greeted with a sudden splash of white light, a loud (yet strangely not loud), wood-against-bone noise, and the sudden realization that I was stumbling backward down the hall.

<i>Falling... ladder...       Hit...  in... head...         Blood...         Home... alone...     Must... get... help...</i>

It turns out it wasn't quite as bad as all that, but I realized I'd been smashed just above the eye by a rogue attic ladder.

Similar to Gloria Gaynor, though, I survived. (As I did in my last post.)

I was admittedly disappointed that I only had a small gash right next to my left eye but no cool shiner because I still think on sixth grade levels in some areas. Remember -- I'm a typical male. Regardless of the lack of a really good contusion, I received mostly acceptable levels of pity from my family when they got home in spite of my stupidity.

It was a neat experience, all told, but I doubt I'll do it again.

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Adventures in Yardwork

I hope you'll enjoy this blast from the past (originally posted in 2008):

An appropriate subtitle for today's post is "Lessons in Stupidity." Some of you will read this post and think, "Oh, no he di'n't," and some will read it and say, "Dude! I wish I'd been there!" Regardless, in light of this story I find it ironic that I've ever posted anything at all about wisdom.

This morning I was string-trimming in some thick weeds behind our storage shed, and I hit one of those tomato vine stabilizing wire thingies. It was pretty rusty, and I leaned down through the weeds and pulled it and one more out of the ground. I threw them down behind me and I started to pray, "Lord, please keep me from stepping on that rusty wire while I work," and then either God or my common sense said, "C’mon… that's dumb, Dean. Move the wire." So I stopped trimming and put it in the trash.

Score one for wisdom! Yeah!

I kept trimming so I could get to this huge weed-berry-tree thing with purple roots and pull it up without stepping on a snake, and in doing so I had to move our old Rubbermaid trash can out of the way. We haven’t used it in forever. It housed a really old tarp, a bunch of soda cans which probably had fermented cola left in them, a bag with dirty diapers, and miscellaneous paper trash.

Oh yeah… and a wasp nest.

As soon as I rolled the trash can away from the shed, the air filled with a dozen or so wasps, which I thought were behind the trash can high on the wall of the shed (lots of good wasp hiding places in a tin roof). I ran to get the wasp spray, but it only lasted for two shots, neither of which felled a bogey. So I ran inside and grabbed some Lysol (TM)-style disinfectant spray. You need to be aware that it will not kill wasps; don’t bother trying. Also be aware that it's not flammable. That was the next step in my strategy -- the tried-and-true lighter-and-aerosol can plan. When the disinfectant wouldn’t ignite, I ran back inside and snagged a can of hairspray. My daughter wanted to help arm me when she found out why I was so excited, so she gave me a can of glitter hairspray, which turned out to be extremely flammable; even more than our boring adult hairspray. I took the glitter hairspray and a lighter and marched back out to the shed.

I got a couple of wasps before I realized that the nest was actually in the blue trash can, not on the wall of the shed. There’s a little circular cap on the top of the trash can lid (you can see it in the photo), and it was missing -- that's where the wasps were going in and out. I figured I'd smoke 'em out, so I sprayed a pretty good bit of glitter into the hole (no flame – that would be dumb), hoping to get a few of them from the fumes, and then I moved on to shoot them out of the air with the lighter.

A few moments later, a wasp landed on the edge of the trash can. It was a "gimme." That sucker was just sitting there waiting to be flamed. So I edged up to the can, flicked the lighter, and depressed the nozzle. Oh, man, was this ever sweet. And then...

BWHOOOOM!!!!

The trash can lid flew high into the air, along with soda cans and a bag of what appeared later to be dirty diapers. I instinctively dove away, thinking, "Were those cans THAT fermented?!" and before that thought was even past my synapses I remembered that I'd sprayed several gallons (or a lot, anyway) of glitter hairspray into the can.

Eyes still wide, I looked at the blackened soft drink cans laying on the ground and the white bag containing a poop diaper, and then I saw the tarp sticking out of the trash can, smoldering and beginning to ignite. I rushed to Hershey the Dog’s pool and picked it up, spilling the water but giving me enough to extinguish the growing flame. Then I poured the rest of the water on the smoldering diaper bag.

As I stood there, thanking God for saving me from a massive amount of foolishness, I looked at the upside-down trash can lid and spied a vacant, slightly-charred wasp nest.

Got 'em!!

All this to say... while I have never done this specific thing before (and most likely will never do it again), the building blocks and lessons were already in place for me to have known just how stupid I was being. How many times have we been given knowledge and wisdom that we ought to be applying but fail to do so because of a little temptation for excitement or fun?

He who disdains instruction despises his own soul,
But he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.
- Proverbs 15:32 (NKJV)

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save me from myself?

This morning I set my coffee cup on top of a three-ring binder that was on a table in the den (or whatever the proper word is for that room). It wasn't one of those with the huge 2" or 3" spine, but there was an incline to it, so my coffee cup was sitting there at an angle. As I stood next to it and put my houseshoes on, I said a short, silent prayer: "Lord, please don't allow that coffee cup to fall." I knew that if it fell it would wake my daughter, who'd slept on the pull-out bed in the den thingy room.

It struck me pretty much instantly that if I do something that intentionally invokes the results of the law of gravity in a bad way, it's a little silly to ask God to adjust the laws of nature for a few minutes while I put my shoes on.

To be sure, I thought there was a pretty good chance that the coffee cup wouldn't slide off and crash to the floor. Otherwise I wouldn't have put it there. But I thought it was a pretty good insurance policy to ask God to take up the slack.

Here's where I think that we Christians are prone to take verses out of context. "This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." (1 John 5:14, NASB) Could I have confidence that God would hear my prayer and respond the way I asked Him to?

Maybe you've offered such prayers as, "Lord, I'm so late because I had to change clothes because I didn't like that other shirt. Please help me get there on time," or "Please don't let the computer lock up on me before I send this e-mail, even though I don't run antivirus software and haven't defragged in three years." Things like this and my goofy coffee-cup prayer are instances in which we ask God to take up the slack of our own stupidity or lack of planning and preparation.

I'm talking about the things that are obviously nuts, but it goes even deeper than this. Very often we will do things a certain way, out of the will of God or without so much as a thought about Christ, and then ask God to make the results turn out in an unlikely way.

If we've spent the whole day living outside of God's will, it's a misconception to think that He will wrap all of the day's events up in a way that glosses over our intentional wrong actions and say to us, "No problem. Well done, my good and faithful servant!"

Many times, praise God, He is merciful and gracious in these situations. But remember the resounding words of the psalmists and prophets like Jeremiah (I paraphrase from many different passages): I have been faithful to walk in Your ways, Lord. Please remember your servant and protect me from calamity and those who would harm me. (have a look at Psalm 58 and Psalm 91, for instance.) Looking at Scripture, I don't believe we can hope for the latter without having done the former.

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Adventures in Yardwork

An appropriate subtitle for today's post is "Lessons in Stupidity." I was wondering what to say today, or if I should post anything, and it fell right into my lap. Some of you will read this post and think, "Oh, no he di'n't," and some will read it and say, "Dude! I wish I'd been there!" Regardless, I find it ironic that I've ever posted anything at all about wisdom.

This morning I was string-trimming in some thick weeds behind our storage shed, and I hit one of those wire tomato vine stabilizing wire thingies. It was pretty rusty, and I leaned down through the weeds and pulled it and one more out of the ground. I threw them down behind me and I started to pray, "Lord, please keep me from stepping on that rusty wire while I work," and then either God or my common sense said, "C’mon… that's dumb, Dean. Move the wire." So I stopped trimming and put it in the trash.

Score one for wisdom! Yeah!

I kept trimming so I could get to this huge weed-berry-tree thing with purple roots and pull it up without stepping on a snake, and in doing so I had to move our old Rubbermaid trash can out of the way. We haven’t used it in forever. It housed a really old tarp, a bunch of soda cans which probably had fermented cola left in them, a bag with dirty diapers, and miscellaneous paper trash.

Oh yeah… and a wasp nest.

As soon as I rolled the trash can away from the shed, the air filled with a dozen or so wasps, which I thought were behind the trash can high on the wall of the shed (lots of good wasp hiding places in a tin roof). I ran to get the wasp spray, but it only lasted for two shots, neither of which felled a bogey. So I ran inside and grabbed some Lysol (TM)-style disinfectant spray. You need to be aware that it will not kill wasps; don’t bother trying. Also be aware that it's not flammable. That was the next step in my strategy -- the tried-and-true lighter-and-aerosol can plan. When the disinfectant wouldn’t ignite, I ran back inside and snagged a can of hairspray. My daughter wanted to help arm me when she found out why I was so excited, so she gave me a can of glitter hairspray, which turned out to be extremely flammable; even more than our boring adult hairspray. I took the glitter hairspray and a lighter and marched back out to the shed.

I got a couple of them before I realized that the wasp nest was actually in the blue trash can, not on the wall of the shed. There’s a little circular cap on the top of the trash can lid (you can see it in the photo), and it was missing -- that's where the wasps were going in and out. I figured I'd "smoke them out," so I sprayed a pretty good bit of glitter into the hole (no flame – that would be dumb), hoping to get a few of them from the fumes, and then I moved on to shoot them out of the air with the lighter.

A few moments later, a wasp landed on the edge of the trash can. It was a "gimme." That sucker was just sitting there waiting to be flamed. So I edged up to the can, flicked the lighter, and depressed the nozzle. Oh, man, was this ever sweet. And then...

BWHOOOOM!!!!

The trash can lid flew high into the air, along with soda cans and a bag of what appeared later to be dirty diapers. I instinctively dove away, thinking, "Were those cans THAT fermented?!" and before that thought was through my synapses I remembered that I'd sprayed several gallons (or a lot, anyway) of glitter hairspray into the can.

Eyes still wide, I looked at the blackened soft drink cans laying on the ground and the white bag containing a poop diaper, and then I saw the tarp sticking out of the trash can, smoldering and beginning to ignite. I rushed to Hershey the Dog’s pool and picked it up, spilling the water but giving me enough to extinguish the growing flame. Then I poured the rest of the water on the smoldering diaper bag.

As I stood there, thanking God for saving me from a massive amount of foolishness, I looked at the upside-down trash can lid and spied a vacant, slightly-charred wasp nest.

Got 'em!!

All this to say... while I have never done this specific thing before (and most likely will never do it again), the building blocks and lessons were already in place for me to have known just how stupid I was being. How many times have we been given knowledge and wisdom that we ought to be applying but fail to do so because of a little temptation for excitement or fun?

He who disdains instruction despises his own soul,
But he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.
- Proverbs 15:32 (NKJV)

Read more »