You probably read the title of this story and thought, “Hmmm, has Cheryl been drinking too much?” But the truth is that I had “an incident,” as we say in Italia—which really means, an accident.

On Wednesday morning Em and I went out to do some routine maintainance around the house. He casually asked, “Could you pull out those few nails from the wood on the fence?” I glanced over to see that he had removed some slats and intended to install new ones as soon as the space was free from those pesky protruding nails. So I picked up a couple of my favorite tools, the pry bar and the hammer and began testing the resolve of those few remaining stragglers. Most of the nail heads were exposed. Easy, I thought. Some others were bent and needed to be hack-sawed. So I decided to switch off, trading out the two tasks.

The first couple of nails were barely holding on to the wood, so my trusty hammer and I eased them out effortlessly. The hack-saw task was a bit more methodical. Em suggested that I cut 1/3 of the way through the nail and then “tap” the nail so that it would snap off cleanly. Good idea. It was, however, harder than he suggested. I sawed. I tapped. I sawed. I tapped. I decided that those little devils needed more persuasion. So I picked up a pair of pliers and bent them back and forth. Snap! They broke, just as predicted.

I dropped the old nail parts into my little red plastic bucket, so that I could wrap them in a small paper lunch bag, followed by a paper grocery bag before putting them into the trash. (I know they never really touch the stuff, but I always have visions of some kind and unsuspecting West Valley Collection person sustaining a wound from my dangerous discards.) So I gift wrap them for security. Sometimes I remind myself of Phil Hartman’s portrayal of “Cooking with the Anal Retentive Chef” on Saturday Night Live years ago.

But back to the nails. After I clipped all the dangling nail bodies from the boards, I returned to prying loose the easier ones. I used the claw hammer and plucked them out one-by-one. I encountered a couple of resistors, so I had to use a little more leverage and force. Some were just above my shoulder level, so I began some rather artful horizontal prying. As I pulled the hammer toward me, a thought passed through my mind, “I should be wearing safety glasses.” Distracted from my focus, I pulled a bit harder to dislodge a rather belligerent nail. I told myself that after this one, I’d stop and put on those glasses and rethink my process. But no, in that split second the nail and the hammer schemed together, and with my final muscular tug, the nail released and the leverage of the hammer brought the handle soundly into my right cheek. Wow! Such pain! Maybe I saw stars. I don’t really remember, since I was teetering on unconsciousness!

With my elbows on my knees, I steadied myself. I felt like I had somehow wandered into a boxing ring and my opponent just landed the punch that would put me out for the count. 1, 2, 3, . . . I walked into the kitchen to splash some cold water onto my face. Yeow! Wow! Boy, did that hurt! I started back down the steps to the patio and noticed that I could see my own cheek obscuring my descent. Uh, oh!

Within a couple of hours I had a bruise the size of a penny just below my eye. Not on my cheek, under my eye. Oh, no! Could I possibly get a black eye from this little slip? I fumbled my way back into the house to ice my cheek and eye. The cold compress did nothing to lessen the blooming color.

Thursday morning, I woke up with a full-on shiner. I called my friend on a video call just so that he could see the damage that I’d done. He gasped. He really did.

Later Thursday, we went to the hardware store where people seemed to be eyeing my bruise—but nobody said a word or even showed an inkling that my eye wasn’t “normal.” Strange. So polite.

Now, it’s Friday. I went to the grocery store, wearing about an entire tube of concealer, followed by a dousing with powder to set the 1/4″ thick make-up. With sun glasses, I looked pretty normal. When I returned home, I glanced in the mirror and decided that the bruise was healing nicely. It wasn’t so bad after all. Then I removed the make-up. I sighed in despair.

Next time, I’ll be more careful. Next time, I’ll follow every safety precaution that I can think of. I’ll pay more attention, stay focused. But, hey, what ever happened to that culprit nail and that demon blue-handled hammer that tried to finish me off? That dastardly duo were in cahoots to black my eye? After my wounding, I forgot all about those cold-hearted schemers . . . until now.

Posted on February 26, 2011

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