If blood be the price of accessibility

In which our Hero has by god paid in full

Of course that’s Kipling. (laugh) Sorry, I had to look it up now that I was remembering to. I think that’s yet another bit of classical literature that I owe my exposure to, to the Wrath of Khan. I have a great affection for Rudyard Kipling. (As opposed to that personal sense of connection to Rudyard Kipling for some words he set aside for me and my kindred).

I probably should have saved the a quote like that for an entry about work, but I’m honestly just amused at the bloody gouge in my thumb because I was so careful, I really was.

Hollywood gave me a ride home and asked why my parents were parked on a different side from usual. I knew the real answer, but I decided to make fun of myself by telling him that I think my father was just being clever and opting to block me in the garage for the amusement value. Which struck me as funny enough that I went to complain to my father about his malice and aforethought.

He laughed but then said, “But there’s another problem with the garage.” Oh? “It won’t open.” Oh!

I stuck my head into the garage and sure enough the chain of the garage door opener was hanging slack. Which is how I came to be out in the humid afternoon, in the enclosed garage, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

Going in to the house to move the cars once we had the door open, I took off my dress shirt and then realized that I had just hit another “I am my father” milestone, working in a white undershirt and dress pants, a fashion combination I still don’t particularly approve of.

But I was careful! I planted the ladder carefully each time, I made sure the struts were locked, I moved with care up and down the rungs. I was very conscious that I was working on a high power motor device chained to a heavy door and that I could fall, I could get snagged by the tractor car, I could be in the line of… hmm.. I’m not sure what the single word term is for this one. I could be in the whiplash path of the steel cable if it snapped.

So I wasn’t. I kept my head and hands out of the way, I unplugged things that weren’t in use unless I needed them, I uncoupled the door unless I absolutely needed it, and I was careful in a way that would never get credited but that I could honestly say to my sweetheart should she ever ask that yes, I took care of hers.

I retensioned the chain, checked for faults in the crimping in case something had slide, and reasoned my way through the design and physics of the rail and chain. Plugged things back in and tested the tractor on the rail without load. Then coupled the door back in and closed the garage. Success! And opened the garage, and…. whir whir whir thunk Oh.

I worked my way down the rail and chain, checking the points of failure that I could think of, and then the points that were left in case they were possible points of failure and nothing I could see was wrong with the garage door opener.

Which was when I noticed, just a foot from my head, that the torsion sprint on the left, one of two great engines of potential energy that should be primed and ready and, most of all, whole… was not.

One of those great black torsion springs was in fact not whole at all, but instead had sprung, so to speak, apart. In my most engineeriest voice, I pointed out the condition to my father who needed a moment to reason through the assembly himself (as I’d done in my head just before) and agreed. It’s broken.

It’s broken, and beyond easy repair at least today, and probably worth hiring someone more practiced with the disengaging and reengaging of what is essentially a very sophisticated application of a very ancient sort of engine of war. I checked a few videos on youtube, and the job is within my skill. (But not within my toolbox.)

So we put away the tools, and I hung the snow scoop, and rolled the dolly back to to the wall and that was when, impossibly, after so much care and precision, I dug a scrap of skin out of my thumb.

With a ladder. That I wasn’t on. Or holding. Just near, really.

I’m not sure if I could do that again if I tried. (sigh)