Yeah. No. I get it. I was also just pointing out that we’ve all had our bouts of stupidity. It doesn’t necessarily take idiocy- just as you say, a millisecond of inattentiveness- or a distraction.
when i was in highschool and middleschool, I used to go down to Missouri and spend my summers with my Grandpa and grandma. grandpa was raised in Nixa as a farmboy. There were a lot of practical life lessons. “use the chicken sticks!” he warned me once. “Why? I’ll keep my hand clear.”
“You’ve met Tom [his neighbor, who he didn’t really like].”
“yeah.”
“you see his thumb?”
“yes, I mean… no. it’s kinda hard to miss it ain’t… oh. I’ll use the chicken sticks.”
another time, doing some random timber clearing-
“wear the safety glasses.”
…
“You know Tom…”
“alight alright.” (tom had a pirate patch.)(I’ll give you two guesses why grandpa and tom never got along.)
Looking back at it, it’s amazing how effective those bits of pragmatic wisdom were. they stuck. if you know what I mean. it’s also kinda amazing how Tom was still alive, given all the anecdotes about his fuck ups.
I had a friend in highschool who’s dad had lost part of his pointer finger to an encounter with a saw blade. He had just a little bit of the bone beyond the second knuckle that was weirdly pointed and it hurt like hell when he jabbed you with it. I know this because I used to help them build shit around their farm and if he caught us being unsafe he’d poke us in the chest with that damn half-finger while he yelled at us about it.
![[HSW] well, that was entirely preventable](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e822224d-e684-4f04-87ae-bd938e403508.jpeg){kind=link}
Yeah. No. I get it. I was also just pointing out that we’ve all had our bouts of stupidity. It doesn’t necessarily take idiocy- just as you say, a millisecond of inattentiveness- or a distraction.
when i was in highschool and middleschool, I used to go down to Missouri and spend my summers with my Grandpa and grandma. grandpa was raised in Nixa as a farmboy. There were a lot of practical life lessons. “use the chicken sticks!” he warned me once. “Why? I’ll keep my hand clear.” “You’ve met Tom [his neighbor, who he didn’t really like].” “yeah.” “you see his thumb?” “yes, I mean… no. it’s kinda hard to miss it ain’t… oh. I’ll use the chicken sticks.”
another time, doing some random timber clearing- “wear the safety glasses.” … “You know Tom…” “alight alright.” (tom had a pirate patch.)(I’ll give you two guesses why grandpa and tom never got along.)
Looking back at it, it’s amazing how effective those bits of pragmatic wisdom were. they stuck. if you know what I mean. it’s also kinda amazing how Tom was still alive, given all the anecdotes about his fuck ups.
I think everyone has a Tom in their life at some point, whether they listen to the lessons or not is a different matter.
Those lessons really stuck too.