Well well well...
When I was just a kid, my folks had a big backyard. I used to take hours tugging lengths of water hose around, just to keep the stuff green. My father had the bright idea of installing a sprinkler system, and having a well dug in the backyard, where a pump could supply all the water needed, for free.

They worked on it for weeks, drilling deeper and deeper, with a sort of pulley attached to a weight that would drive some sort of boring bit into the ground.

Well, one day, my friends and I found out something cool. If you held on to the rope, someone else could tug on the other end, and raise you to the top, where the pulley was (approximately 25 feet in the air). Once up there, you'd grab the other rope, and be able to stay up there all by yourself, looking out over the other houses and backyards. It was pretty cool.

Here comes my turn, and I get tugged to the top. Due to a miscommunication with the ground crew, I wasn't actually holding on to the other rope when they let go. As I felt myself go into freefall, I grabbed at it anyway, but it didn't seem to slow me one bit.

I smashed into the ground and lay there, answering "urgle" to every question my friends asked me. They finally got my father out there, and he came out very relaxed with his evening drink in hand, and pretty much told me to walk it off. I must have been slowed a little bit by my attempt to grab the rope, because no bones were broken.

Once I finally got my breath back, I limped back into the house, and noticed I had the mother of all rope burns, all up and down my arm. It took probably a week for that to heal, with the bandage healing into the wound each time. I remember having to soak the thing every time I changed it, just to get the bandage to come off completely without tearing the new skin.

Good times, good times...
(Jaycatt, Sat 14 Feb 2009, 0:34, Reply)