Machine Herald

I never liked the sound of machinery, especially when I was a kid. When I wanted to sleep late on a Saturday, the roar of a lawnmower outside my window would tear me from my slumber and dreams of solving mysteries with Inspector Gadget's niece. In my youngest days, the din of a vacuum cleaner was the worst. Even as our cats scrambled under beds and into dark corners, I'd curl up in a fetal position with my hands clamped to my ears. Comic books and cartoons definitely increased my flare for the dramatic. The thing I feared most about the vacuum was the fate of my toys. I hated when my mom vacuumed my room, because I was bad about picking up my figures and their accessories. Many a time a plastic brick or gun or sword would go missing, and my mom would have to go through the vacuum bag. Sometimes these items would vanish forever, to my horror, yet I never did learn to keep a clean room. Instead of being motivated to keep my stuff off the floor, I was motivated to close my door and try to keep her out.

Machine sounds have never heralded good things for me. Just yesterday I came home to the sound of an electric saw. It was a horrible, jagged sound, and I hesitated to go downstairs and see what my dad was up to. I approached with caution, as he's 76 with clogged arteries and I didn't want to startle him. He didn't hear or see me as I observed what he was doing. On a plastic milk crate rested an old metal sign from the days when he had his own automobile repair shop. He held it down with one hand as he pressed an electric saw through it with another. It slid and leapt around despite his efforts to hold it steady. He was wearing neither gloves nor goggles, but he's never wasted the time on safety. “I've lived this long...” He's often been critical of my wimpy caution. Over at the vacant lot he owns, the old lawnmower in the garage has no bag. It just spits grass out the side. Since our lot has grass, weeds, twigs, thorns and more, I always put on a pair of safety goggles before cutting it. “Come on, we don't have all day!” Still, when I'm done mowing and catch a glimpse of my reflection in a car window, my face covered with dirt, grass, and bits of wood save for the area around my eyes where the goggles were, I have no regrets about the time spent protecting my eyes. Maybe my dad's never done more harm to himself than a couple of cuts and scrapes, never blown up a car when he's used a blowtorch to remove stubborn parts dangerously near the gas tank, but he's just been lucky. Considering all the freak injuries I've endured doing perfectly ordinary things, tempting fate is never a good move for me. If I use that mulching mower, I will wear goggles, and if I climb a ladder to work on the roof, I will insist he hold the bottom, especially when I'm avoiding that one cracked rung.

The sign my dad was cutting was vibrating and bouncing all over the place. He kept slipping, and metal shavings were everywhere. As he hit a snag and let the saw wind down, I took a few steps back and addressed him from the other side of the room, as though I'd just arrived, rather than appear suddenly over his shoulder and startle him. He explained that my mom needed some shelves for plants, and he was cutting up the old sign. I noticed pencil marks indicating pizza-shaped slices, with the tips rounded off. The milk crate had a few nicks in it from the sign vibrating out of his grasp. How soon before he slipped and cut himself? So, despite saying he didn't need help, I climbed around to the other side of the crate and braced the sign. As metal shavings bounced around, I squinted and thought of the goggles in a garage next to an empty lot three towns away. He finished the slice he was working on when I got there, and got through the next one, pausing when he realized the saw was hot and choosing to finally put on a glove to hold it. Mission accomplished, I got up to finally go upstairs, unpack my bag and change out of my gym clothes. I glanced at my leg and noticed a three-inch gash. It didn't hurt, nor did I feel it happen, and seemed to be mostly surface damage. My guess is one of the fine shavings was on my skin and I brushed it away, cutting myself. Meanwhile, my dad noticed somewhere along the line his pencil mark had deviated from the cardboard template he'd used for these makeshift “shelves”, and he had to trim the last piece. Before I could stop him, slice in one hand, saw in the other, he took off a very fine sliver from the quarter-inch thick metal, miraculously keeping all of his fingers.

I'd share more tales about what the sounds of machines herald around here, but I hear the roar of a saw cutting metal out in our driveway. I'd better go see what my dad's up to...