Having a small contracting company means a lot of things. We do almost anything. In summer, I work as hard as possible because winter can be slow at best. That means I’ll take jobs I normally wouldn’t to keep the cash flow coming through.
And I’ve had a few odd ones.
Yesterday I took a job removing concrete. While that’s not normally an issue, it turns out the “little concrete pad” was four feet by twelve feet by twelve inches thick. The length and width are irrelevant. The thickness however… umm… yeah.
I rented a jack-hammer, hereafter known as Bosch Brute.
Bosch Brute and I never really became friends over the next seven and half hours despite working so closely together. For the most part, it’s because he had the infuriating habit of rattling just about everything I keep in my skin suit.
Having never used a jackhammer before, it was a new experience for the first half hour or so. Keeping the thing from rattling off the concrete platform was a bit of a trick. I glanced around occasionally to see if there was anyone with a video camera. I had no inclination to appear on “Funniest Home Videos” looking like a Loonie Tunes character skipping across the driveway.
I wonder when we stop trying new things. When do we stop trying because we don’t wish to look silly? Is this an adult trait or a societal one? If it is, I don’t wish to be adult in that regard. I have always tried new things long enough to become proficient and then try something else. I stick with the things I really like. I’ll try anything from learning a new computer language to learning to SCUBA dive at forty to white water kayak, again when I was forty. Even trying new forms of business are not out of the question.
Daffy Duck be damned!
Sometimes looking foolish is part of the learning curve. Whether I can get past this societal stigma or not usually determines how much fun I have participating in the new activity. Recently I tried Dragon Boat Racing and had a great time… primarily because I didn’t care what I looked like. More so, I cared what I felt like.
Fear of looking bad is an adult stigma. Kids don’t care and have a lot less self-consciousness than those of us who have been pounded by “acceptability” for far too long. Being child-like is not the same as being childish. Child-like is a positive attribute in my opinion. Childish is not.
Back to Bosch Brute: he was an animal all day. The ache today is a direct result of his insolence and my inability to give up. By the end of the day, I was becoming proficient at the destruction of concrete which was obviously created by the Universe to provide hours of entertainment for a forty-nine year old child-like adventurer.
As it turns out, Bosch Brute and I will be reacquainted on Monday. I’m sure he’s looking forward to rattling my cage again. I’m looking forward to taming the wee beasty…
Right after I ingest massive quantities of Tylenol Fourteen.
