Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Unsafe Wherever You Go



So I set my old Roland Juno-106 synthesizer up for the first time in years and one of the first things I noticed was this piece of adhesive wrap from a Bob Dylan CD stuck to the face of the instrument. I remember sticking it there one Valentine's Day, many years ago...I had just broken up with my short-term girlfriend and had purchased  'Blood On The Tracks' as a consolation gift to myself. The rest of that day is a little blurry.

Not long after setting up the keys, I was carelessly trying to unplug a cable from the rear of my PC. The tower has two open expansion slots where I briefly added a sound and a  video card...the strip of metal in-between the two bays has a razor edge. It was so sharp that I didn't even feel it at first, it wasn't until I started bleeding on my keyboard that I realized I had sliced my finger on my computer.





It wasn't  at all serious, but it was a little messy. Of course, I had to capture the moment for posterity before I cleaned it and applied a bit of pressure. I'm tough like that.

I returned my attention to the keyboard and found it to be in appalling condition. The jack where the power cord should be attached was gone. I have no idea were it went...I was drunk for ten years, things disappeared. But I just cannot seem to reconstruct the events leading to the removal of that cable plug.

I found an old vacuum cleaner cord, stripped one end off of it and used stray bits of scotch tape and post-it notes to attach the cord to the wires inside of the synthesizer. I wasn't sure what to do with the loose ground wire...should I ground it to the chassis of the keyboard? To the metal tubing of the  keyboard stand? To my belt buckle?  I wound up capping it off with aluminum foil and shoving it back inside the contraption.



Then I took a quick shower. It was hot and humid and I was having a hard time getting dry, so I stood on a wet towel while I powered up my old friend, not wanting to drip water on my pristine floor and all that.

It worked.

I celebrated my accomplishment with a pair of pippins and a tuna sandwich, after which I felt an urgent compulsion to floss. When I went to pull a length of waxy string from the dispenser, the little metal doo-hickey that cuts the floss popped out of the box and landed in the sink.

I picked it up and tried to re-insert it into the package...it didn't fit right, so I decided brute force was probably the best solution and pressed down really, really hard with my thumb. I lost my grip and I wound up puncturing the finger pictured above, which had just finished healing.



Sometimes I wonder...

8 comments:

secret agent woman said...

What in the world is a pippin?

I've done the "snap a photo of the injury before taking care of it" thing, too. It's just the ususal lunacy of the blogger.

the blogger formerly known as yinyang said...

I'm taking this post as proof positive that flossing is evil.

yellowdoggranny said...

hmm, my old boyfriend chuck was a follower of escatology and they believe if you keep having accidents where you get hurt, that it's because your trying to punish yourself. becareful..things happen in 3's.

Allan said...

S- A tasty apple.

YY- And there is fluoride in the kool-aid.

YY- Escatology?!? Geez, I'm a klutz. It's not the end of the world.

beth said...

eeww

Craig D said...

You, sir, are the "Mr. Bean" of Roland Juno-106s.

Also, if I were you, I'd tell my dentist that flossing causes my fingers to bleed.

AngelConradie said...

Dude... So how did you survive when you were actually drinking!!?!?

Allan said...

CD- You should hear my slapstick bass technique!

Angel- Just barely.