Masochist's Dream Cart
When I was a teenager, I was driving along the Rio Chama in northern New Mexico, when I spotted a tiny cart that hung from a two-wheeled assembly that ran across the river on a cable. It was probably some kind of government hydrology cart, which presumably allowed a person to measure depth in the middle of the river and other river statistics too. The cart wasn't locked up, and it looked like great fun, so I jumped in and merrily rode the cart over the river.

And then the cart stopped halfway across the river. There was no motive power for the cart on the sagging, outstretched cable, so if I wanted to complete the journey across the river I would have to reach up over my head with my hands and pull both the cart and myself uphill along the cable.

The first time I reached overhead and started pulling the cart uphill, the two wheels riding the cable rolled right over my right hand, ripping the skin off my thumb. It hurt like a bitch too, especially when I reflected that all the harm was entirely self-inflicted: my own weight was being used to rip my own skin off and maybe break my own finger bones too. It was a masochist's dream cart! I couldn't abandon the damned thing and jump into the river: I don't swim!

In pain, I reversed course and started hauling myself uphill, trying (and failing) to avoid running over my hands again. I left the cable slick with blood. (If I'd really been a masochist I would have spent the entire afternoon at this place, of course.)

Interestingly, my thumbprint was permanently changed by this event. Thus, I have prudently avoided a life of crime, because I'm too easy to finger.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 5:21, 2 replies)

I have an altered thumbprint aswell
I have the exactly mark of a lighter wheel caused by when a lighter was left alight over the period of, say, a rock ballad. The light went out, I restruck it and in the process branded myself.

The up side is to this day when discussing scars I can preoffer my marked digit and remark, 'See that one? Lighter burn, Guns n Roses, Wembley Stadium 1993.'
( riverghost servicing your mum since, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 8:20, closed)

November Rain?
My second big gig ever.
( sanityclause is waiting until, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 17:39, closed)