The Rack of Pain

The hardest part of being a hoarder is knowing you have something you need and never finding it until after you’ve replaced it. This situation just magnifies the buildup of already unreasonable piles of junk. My dad would lay something down and that is where its home would be until laid elsewhere. My stepmom was a neat freak of the highest order. She organized similar things together for the most part, and no matter what, it would be in a neat if not outright decorative pile of items or boxes. She often covered cardboard boxes with contact paper to make them look nicer. Her organizational pattern was obvious in her mind, but not so much to the outside observer. It took someone with extensive personal experience to understand how her mind worked. I was that person.

We were thrown together early in my life, and as a family we had a large learning curve in how to live together. In some respects it never happened, and in others it did. I was an obedient, easygoing kid who became very rebellious over time. Along the way I somehow learned how to be both. My parents came from a time that a kid never said no or ignored an order or request. When told to do something, I did it no questions asked or suffered the consequences. When it wasn’t done to par, the consequences were not too great either. Somehow communication lines were cut from our brains to mouths and thus to each other, creating a plethora of consequences. It was a long, painful process to figure out how and what she was thinking. In the meantime I also learned both my parents’ organizational skills, or lack thereof.

It was vital to keep everything neat, clean and organized. Dad didn’t, but Mom did in her own convoluted way, and so did I. After leaving home I regressed into less regard for neatness, was particular about only certain things being clean, and my mind would retain the location of any item I laid down or put in a particular place. I did have particular places for particular things. As life went on and I accumulated stuff, the problem was having a place for it all. I would put something somewhere intending to organize or properly store it later as time became available. Just like storage space, time is rather limited, so I moved on without ever going back to complete my intentions.

I built a shed on the back corner of the property long ago to have a place to work and keep a bunch of the accumulated stuff. Since we had added on to the house, it accumulated a lot of leftover building supplies. To this was added every odd and end, from old tires and broken-down equipment to any piece of wood or metal I thought would have a future use. Thinking back to all the old sheds, barns and houses I’ve seen full of old stuff, I realize I’m just carrying on a grand old tradition. It was a veritable goldmine. You had to dig and dig without knowing when, where or if you’d hit pay dirt. I’m much older now and my mind has a harder time retaining the location of objects laid down, along with any surety of their actual existence. This became a real issue when I started looking for materials for my various building projects. It is great when I find something I don’t remember having. Things go really bad when I know I have something and no trace can be found, especially when I remember casually seeing it in more recent times.

I decided to build a wood rack of sorts in the shed so I could put wood and other items up high off of the ground and be more organized. That way, I could find the materials I wanted far easier. The potential downside was that I was making more room to keep even more junk. Nothing tried, nothing gained, I guess. During my vacation I had started cutting oak boards into strips to bolt and screw into place. I didn’t want it to be so high that it was difficult to store or retrieve items, so I cut pieces to drop down from the framework of the building to attach my crosspieces to. I purchased the appropriate number of nuts, bolts and washers plus some extra to allow for unforeseen complications or losses. Dropping a small item in this environment was the epitome of the needle in the haystack. I used my carpentry magnetic nail retriever a couple of times in the process.

I work four ten-hour days per week, so I have a day off during the week to get some things done. My next day off after my summer staycation, I got busy installing my rack. I added a wood bit to bore holes for the bolts that would give my rack the strength it needed and used my impact driver to put in the screws to stabilize the pieces, and I was in business. The interesting part was perching on various items and piles to get up to the spots I was working on. I have a versatile articulating ladder. Combinations of ladder and random objects and piles allowed me to reach wherever it was needed.

Everything was going fast and smooth until the very end. I would bore the holes for the pieces to go together, bolt the piece in place and use three inch screws, strategically placed, to keep the whole thing from swinging and add a little more strength. Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This necessitated holding the frame from one direction while driving a drill bit and screw from another direction. Oak is hard stuff requiring a lot of force. Sometimes only body weight is needed to provide the appropriate resistance. Perched on random dubious items reaching up over my head required using some muscle to help force things where they needed to go. I’m always very aware of my hands and body in regards to all possible hazards in these situations. I’ve managed to keep all my fingers and toes through some extremely hazardous occupations and projects.

I was putting in the very last screw left-handed, while reaching high overhead at a weird angle with my other hand in what I thought was a safe spot to give me the force I needed to drive that screw into place. The impact driver slipped and I watched it in slow motion as it arched over the foot-and-a-half gap to sink into my palm. With all my strength committed, I was helpless to reverse it. It was probably good that the shed is far removed from human habitation. Any tender ears would have melted off after I finished a little outburst berating myself, the screw, the impact driver and several other things nearby.

There wasn’t any pain, at least not immediately. Shock in various forms protects us so we might get past the situation. Working in the operating room and being a nurse provides plenty of exposure to the sight of blood and wounds. I’ve seen what can appear to be major blood loss with no adverse effect on people. I’ve also seen major infection and what it does. I decided to let the blood flow and flush out particulates if possible to avoid infection. I had that one screw to finish driving so I repositioned myself with a different angle and drove it home while giving it a few names and words of encouragement.

The spot where the impact driver hit me was close to a major nerve. The same nerve the nail was driven through when Jesus was crucified. My incident was either shallow enough or just off to the side enough to spare me that sort of torture. Some soreness and stiffness was the extent of my suffering. I did go to great effort to protect it from infection, especially at work. It would be a little while before I started digging stuff out and putting it on the rack. The shed was the ultimate place to get infected since mice and other critters had made it a virtual apartment complex.

An odd thing happened a couple nights later that proved to me that animals have souls. I was taking care of the basic chores as twilight set in, being careful with my wrapped hand. Lucky, my chicken, came up to me acting somewhat agitated and with a fervor I’d never seen before or since. I squatted down to see what she wanted and she flew up onto my shoulders. She settled down there to stay as if that was where she belonged. I contend that animals have souls, because at a time I was dealing with the pain of my injury and the shame of my stupidity, I was being consoled by a chicken.