My left hand is good for when i'm knockin' on wood, although i gotta admit that it hurts

This should have been an opportunity for me to brag about being Mr. Fix-it, but after yesterday i have to talk about what a tough few days it's been for my left hand.

Quite a while back, a storm split one of the pieces of wood on my fence, so i decided sunday it was time to replace it. those of you who have known me for any amount of time are already laughing. But wait, it gets funnier. This wasn't just any piece of the fence, it was the piece with the two-piece handle on it. and attached to that piece of wood was a second, smaller piece with the handle for the other side. (the smaller piece of wood also served as what i would call an "anchor." when you put the wood into the fence, the smaller piece on back sits on a piece of wood running perpendicular to the fence.)

For those who don't know me that well, here's a summary of things i've tried to construct/fix in the last 26 years:

- A mop out of two wire coathangers and a shredded t-shirt
-a hand-crafted ping pong paddle, which didn't progress much past the "hey, i should hand craft a paddle" stage.

this was going to require a pencil, tape measure, phillips head screw driver, a ratchet (with two different sized thingies), and a drill. i was giddy.

Long story less long: about an hour and half later, i had a fully functioning piece of wood for a fence with handle installed. But when i went to install it into the fence, i was horrified to see that i had somehow managed to put the thingy that latches into the thingy about an eighth of an inch too high. Just enough to keep it from closing. i was horrified.

This meant that i was going to have to take the whole thing apart and start over. Unless...unless, i just trimmed a bit off the bottom of the rear board where it would sit thismuch lower. brilliant!

[Had i written this before the events of yesterday you will soon hear about, i would be bragging about how i had fixed my fence and it only required one band-aid.]

I took out my handsaw and attempted to trim the bottom of the board. but pretty much all i did was a bunch of scraping. But then i remembered i had a skill saw and thought, "Screw this, I'm using a skill saw." So i take out my 2.5 HP laser-guided skill saw with 18-tooth carbide blade. As soon as i took it out of its carrying case, i realized there was no way in f'ing hell i was putting the plug to that thing anywhere near an outlet. I may have been born yesterday, but it wasn't at night.

In fact, i couldn't even figure out how to put it back into the carrying case, so i just put it back in the box, where it shall remain for all eternity.

so i go back to the regular hand saw and eventually make some progress. after a few minute of sawing, i decide to see if it would be easier if i saw sideway to cut the excess off and create less friction for the saw. needless to saw, the saw scraped the wood then hopped its way over to my left thumb. it stung a little, and bled more than i expected it to. but i washed it off, put a bandaid on it and finished the fence.

and that should have been the end of the story. But as i have foreshadowed it wasn't. stick around for the thrilling conclusion. well, the conclusion.