OT: Power Trip

LMAO...ok....but it does contain a spew warning. Please finish your beverage of choice and don't touch it again until you are done reading. I don't want this story to be responsible for ruining a monitor and/or keyboard somewhere.

I worked at O'Reilly Auto Parts for a little over 3 years. They sell automotive batteries of various sorts (6 volt, 12 volt, even golf cart batteries). I'd say a good 80% of these batteries are "top post" design (battery terminal sticking up from the top of the battery casing), and they have little plastic caps on them to prevent accidental shock, and under these little plastic caps is a plastic coating. Company policy mandates that the salesperson remove the cap, use a post cleaner to scrape off the coating, and replace the cap. Prevents the more-than-occasional-moron from hooking the battery up to find that it doesn't work...not thinking that there is a protective coating on the post preventing a completion of the circuit (said customer brings back battery claiming its defective, and refuses that battery until you prove to him that NOW it works). Pretty simple procedure. No one knew it could be *that* dangerous until *I* got ahold of it.

I was prepping a battery for a customer. First I had to take the little caps off, and those little caps are stuck on there pretty good. A pair of pliers gets them off though, with a minimum of struggling. I didn't happen to have a pair of pliers handy, but I *did* have a screwdriver. Little bitty sucker. The tip was less than a 1/4 inch across. Me being the resident genius, figured that I could pop the cap off using the screwdriver, leverage, and some brute force (I'm hella stronger than I look, always have been). So I stuck the flat end of the screwdriver between the casing and the cap and pried. *POP* off came the cap and it went flying behind me and hit the wall. Ok. Next cap. End of the screwdriver between the casing and the cap and pried. And pried and pried and pried. *POP* ~thunk~ Cap went flying behind me like the first one, only this time the screw driver came within a half inch of my right eye. Right between my eyebrow and the bridge of my nose. Screwdriver, meet bone...bone meet screwdriver. Left a little hole, puncture wound really, and I bled like a stuck pig. I guess metal meeting bone makes quite a racket (I didn't even whimper it happened so fast) because the whole store went silent. Boss man fainted (pretty funny when you consider that he is roughly 50, and 5'6"....laying down) while everyone else gasped. I guess I was quite a sight. The "ass-man" (assistant manager lol) dragged me into the bathroom, and stuffed my head in the sink to start washing my wound out (this is the first of two times he stuck my head in the sink...the other time was when I managed to splash battery acid all over my face, and got it in my eyes....like I said, I'm really accident prone...I think that he used my habit of self injury as an excuse to try to drown me). From that moment on, I had to ask permission to use a screwdriver, awl, pliers, knife, or anything else that could potentially lobotomize me. If I was granted permission to use the tools, I was under constant surveillance. I was, however, allowed to play unsupervised with the impact wrench.....until I threw a 1" combination wrench across the store when changing the pulley on a water pump....but that in itself is a whole different story. (THAT was hilarious when it happened....neither me, nor anyone else in the store, realized that a wrench of that size could go that far, that fast.) If I got caught playing with or using a screwdriver or anything else sharper than a pillow, I got reprimanded, and dragged into the bathroom to have my scar pointed out to me. Yes, I have a scar. Its a teeny one, looks like an acne scar, but its there.

That screwdriver was taped to the wall with a sign over it saying "Karlee's home lobotomy kit $59.99". I wasn't insulted...I thought it was funny.

Karlee in Kansas, ruler of the accident prone (at one point in my life, I was on a first name basis with the emergency room of my hometown...and I taught my high school band director that he should NEVER leave the band room without his first aid kit)

I'm not saying you're wrong to feel that way -- but my personal experience, when I went back to my high-school reunion, was that none of the stuff everyone thought was so important way back then *mattered* any more. I was able to chat comfortably with people who wouldn't have given me the time of day back then. People were *adults*, not teenage brats any more. While it might still be too soon in your case, you might want to give some thought to your 20-year reunion when it rolls around. It could take some of the edge off those old memories.

Celine

It felt damn good the first time I saw a big black pickup and wondered idly "Gee, I wonder how Charley is?". It took me a few minutes to realize that my heart wasn't pounding, I hadn't followed up the thought with "I hope his parachute failed", and in fact, I hadn't thought about him in ages. I really felt nothing other than a mild curiosity about how his life was going, sort of like one would feel about a former coworker, if you happened to remember that they existed at all.

LOL - sounds like my husband!!! He slipped and fell and gashed his eyelid open while trying to stomp down the garbage can once. The garbage can had wheels. Heh. He calmly came into the bedroom (it was 5am) and asked "honey, can you please drive me to the emergency room?" Seeing all the blood running down his face, I bolted out of bed and drove to the hospital in my jammies. Ken does things like this all the time. It would be comical if it weren't so damn scary! He has a million little scars, and each of them has it's own hilarious story.

How about the time when he was nine years old, and broke both wrists while trying to leap from monkey bars to a tree? Yep. Landed in a push up position. Had casts for 3 months. For Halloween, his mom dressed him as C3PO - all he needed was some spray-painted tinfoil. I have pics - it's hilarious. He re-broke one of the wrists a couple months later trying to catch a ball in the hallway at school.

Damn. My hubby is a complete klutz, but it's so damn funny to write about! He's like the absent-minded professor. :) I'll stop now - it's hard to type while laughing!

I looked up the first love of my life several years ago, asked if he wanted to have a cup of tea and catch up, just for the heck of it. He wasn't interested, which hurt my feelings slightly. I had always admired him, as I was very young during our affair, and he was much older. I wanted to show him what kind of person I'd grown into, and I suppose I wanted him to approve.

The place where the Boy Who Broke My Heart (BWBMH) went to work for, in Illinois, has kind of an online events and gossip page, so I checked that out more or less obsessively after he moved away, for a couple months. Eventually I lost interest, thankfully!

The only person I wish I could find, but can't, is my first ex-husband, who was also my first boyfriend. He was a nice but really troubled guy, and a heroin junkie. I'd really love it if I could get in contact with him, but only if he's OK. I think it would break my heart if I found out he was still a junkie, or worse.

I had a seminar in Nome and called up a boy I met when I was 16. We had lunch, on my 50th birthday, no less. But no new tech involved. I asked about him at the front desk. ("You mean Homer with those gorgeous eyes?"). He was still the slimgorgeous guy I met. He was still my most compatible type -- intuitive rational. My instincts as a young person were good. He had married a couple vivacious good looking but insecure women though, and the women in his life were very possessive and omewhat controlling. But he had done well in life, both in white man's world and in village life. And had great respect for the Native artists, and those who chose a subsistance lifestyle, even though he had chosen a different kind of success for himself. (He had described himself as a halfbreed when we were teenagers). I still admire him 37 years later.

Tina

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Kandice Seeber" :

]Damn. My hubby is a complete klutz, but it's so damn funny to write about! ]He's like the absent-minded professor. :) I'll stop now - it's hard to ]type while laughing!

Gods. he sounds just like my Johnny, who to date has managed to avoid broken bones [knock on wood!].

he got stopped today by a patrol officer, who thought he was drinking and driving. it was cream soda!

but the poor child has always had two left feet, and grew taller so fast that i swear, his mind still doesn't know where the ends of his limbs are. he has an IQ over 140 and a heart of gold, but he can trip on the kitchen floor!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.

Oh yes, he's a healer. I also told him he's my "personal saviour", tongue MOSTLY in cheek. He considers psychology an art rather than a science.

It's kind of like he and I talked about. Run of the mill therapists, physicians and counsellors can help most people. When something is significantly different, in your thinking or your chemistry or your experiences, then you need someone special. Then you need an artist. I bless the accident of having it be his door my abuser was sent to.

Tina

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Kandice Seeber" :

]ROFLMAO - Ken and Johnny ought to get together and go bowling, but they ]might hurt eachother on accident! :)

exactly!

his eye/hand coordination is getting better, thanks to the police department, but i swear, he can't walk through a room without knocking something over or tripping.

he seems to be a disaster magnet. if something WAS going to happen anyway, it will happen as soon as he walks in the room - even if he hasn't touched it. we were walking down the street one day in San Francisco. the wind was blowing. just as we walked past a bunch of "umbrella tables", one of them blew over. his first reaction was, "Mom, i didn't touch it - honest!" my aunt and i were laughing so hard people were looking at us - because he was right - he wasn't near it and couldn't have touched it.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.

Karlee -- you are just precious.

Becki "In between the moon and you, the angels have a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.." -- Counting Crows

Yes, I think that sounds like a good approach.

I am learning how to trust serendipity. The best piece I have made so far came about as a result of playing with wire. Not with the intention of using it, but just twisting some thick wire pieces to see what that would feel like. I set two pieces of wire on the table and went to go do something else. The juxtaposition of the two pieces (which occurred through happenstance) was a pleasing visual. So, I made a clay pendant and pressed those two wire bits into it, and then used paint to explore what was happening with that design.

I knew just when it was finished, was pleased with it, wore it to work, and a friend/student offered to buy it immediately. I just gave it to him. It seems the things I do that I'm most happy with are also the ones I let go of most quickly, and I'm delighted that they get to be "out there" somewhere, enhancing someone else's day.

Sometimes, when working with beads, I do what others here say they do and just set them together for a while to see what ideas germinate. But I do need to do more work with the polyclay... I think that's where my real expression shines through the best. I really do love to paint and to mold my own forms.

As far as what I do to tease it out, it's been a meditative excercise for me all along, and I try to bring myself back to a more contemplative or meditative frame of mind when I feel stuck. Stuff will flow from there... and I imagine that's the same thing you're doing when you listen to the quilt. It's connecting with that thing which sort of channels through me and needs to find concrete expression somehow. I'm still learning how to let that happen and quiet all the other stuff that goes on-- sometimes it is hard to just find the discipline to be still.

Sheesh, I feel like I've gone a bit "out there" today! Well, now y'all know-- I am, indeed, a madwoman! And quite happy about it :)

Laura

I think one of the most inhibiting things is usually a sense of critical watchers. So can you try to 'boogie' first in places where you know for sure that no one can see? And can you try to do a few things that you begin with the proviso that they are not for others to see, just for you.

Once they are done, you can change your mind and share them after all if you choose. But it will be a choice, rather than an obligation. And you will be creating to satisfy your own soul, rather than someone else's standards of quality.

That has the potential to free your creative juices, and let them flow again. If you still find yourself considering what you do from an outside point of view, maybe see if you can figure out who it is that is in that Inhibiting Witness role, and figure out why their judgement matters. If you can figure out the answer to the Who? question, imagine sending them off on a Hawaiian vacation, or locking them in a closet with a sack over their head, so they leave you alone long enough to create again.

Does that resonate? Or is the barrier something different from imagining what others will think?

Deirdre

I'm glad you found each other, and became partners in the process of creating effective ways of living...

Deirdre

Then I hope he doesn't have to tail people or do surveillance very often...

Deirdre

I think living well frees you from feeling as if you want or need revenge. Why waste energy on resentment when life is really satisfying?

Deirdre

Maybe we need to form a group.. madwomans are us. :-) I love your description of how this flow is going thru you and into the things youre touching..and playing with.. experimenting with... maybe thats part of what i need to do.. get a scissors and just cut fabric for fun.. and see what the shapes tell me to do next... Thanks! Diana

Im going to have to think about this for a bit. Part of it is no doubt a voice from my father..*not good enough* ...and the rest? Im thinking its something else entirely! Part of me knows I can make one in a series that I like .. maybe more.. but then I stall when I need to make more that feel similar without being duplicating... As in a quilt with panels... where they need to feel related but not be identical, I can design a couple then blank on the rest and the harder I try the worse they become. Sometimes I can come back to the project and find my brain has been simmering something good while the part of me that gets in the way is being distracted. I like that! LOL I know that creativity doesnt come when called like a well trained dog, but it would be nice to know its going to stay in the neighborhood. Diana