There’s a guy at the VoTech giving a safety speech
about power tools.
He looks pretty jaded if you ask me.
“Tools aren’t dangerous, people are,” he says.
Hell, he’s used a skill saw a million times and never been
hurt. What could possibly go wrong?
“Proper execution eliminates dangerous mistakes,” he says.
“Except if the ball has eyes,” I say.
Because you can keep
your eyes on the ball, drop your glove into the perfect
position every time and still get hit in the face.
And it makes you cry every time.
“Sometimes the ball has eyes,” I say.
But the guy with the power tools isn’t listening. He’s lost
in repetition, saying how it’s impossible to cut your finger
off if you manipulate the saw properly.
But the ground and wood can have hidden
flaws where the rules of safety are suspended,
where balls and saws suddenly do unexpected things.
This man has yet to learn the hard way,
the right way,
from experience,
that sometimes the ball does have eyes,
and if it wants to,
it can make you cry.