Help Me Jeebus

Here it is Thursday and I am just getting to the theme for this week’s THEME THURSDAY post. This week the theme is HELP. Lord knows I need all the help I can get. Not only do I need lots of help but I need it all of the time. Isn’t that true of all of us though? We all need help but few of us ever ask for it? Think about it, your husband is taking a 150 lb toilet off the shelf at the local Home Depot and will not even ring that little help bell and wait for Mr. Iselltoiletsatthehomedepot to come and give a hand in hefting the crapper onto the flatbed. I remember when heard the Beatles sing their song I thought Geeze somebody just help the poor guys! I was having a tough time coming up with a story for this week and then just when I thought I was done for I got by with a little help from my friends. When you finish mine go on over to THEME THURSDAY and help yourself to my compatriots entries.


I am going to preface this story with I don’t remember who told it to me and the names are totally my own but the events of the story are pretty much true, give or take a few fabrications. To the person who originally told me this story I apologize if I have totally bastardized it and made it my own. If it upsets you then go write your own dang story. With out anymore rigmarole, what exactly is rigmarole? Is it very stiff marole? What is marole? I digress yet again.

Bubba was a handy type of guy who often worked in his garage in his spare time. He enjoyed fondling and cuddling his Dremel. He patted and caressed his DeWalt router and he rubbed and polished his Skill circular saw daily. He salivated at the mere mention of power tools and was tossed into pure ecstasy upon entering the tool department at the local Home Depot or Lowes. Lord help us should he have the opportunity to visit the local Habor Freight tools. Yes Bubba was smitten with all manly things that ripped, tore, hammered, cut, dremeled and routed. He loved to find project with which he could spend hours utilizing his tools.

There was only one minor problem. Ok, maybe it was a major problem. Bubba was accident prone. Not only was he accident prone but he was downright deadly with his Dewalt. Oh not homicidal, no he was more suicidal. Bubba was also adverse to directions, instructions and manuals. “Hell, I’m a man” he would declare upon acquisition of a new implement “I don’t need no instruckshins nur nuthin.” Then he would push the on button and begin to terrorize oak, walnut, pine, metal, meat or the cat with his new toy. Yes Bubba was a man’s man.

One day as Bubba was slowly and sensuously unwrapping his new reciprocating saw he noticed a pipe sticking out of his garage wall. It was a big metal pipe seemingly coming from and going to nowhere. It was protruding from the wall but there was no destination. It was just capped on one end. Bubba being the curious type and not one to ask for help walked around his garage and saw that the pipe evidently went into the ground behind the wall since it did not extend to the outside wall of the structure. A light bulb went off. Bubba had an idea. It was a brilliant idea. One in which he could utilize his knowledge and skill of construction and his new reciprocating saw.

Bubba ran back into his garage/shop and fired up his new saw. He cut and sawed and sawed and cut until he had the wall board cut from around the insertion area of the pipe. Bubba knew he really only needed to cut a couple of inches wider than the size of the pipe but since a little is good well a lot is better. True to his believe Bubba cut an area four feet wide and five feet high for the 1 inch pipe. He cleared and tore all the sheet rock out and saw that indeed the pipe rose from the ground made a 90 degree turn and invaded his space. This would not do. Bubba could not let this assault go unnoticed and unrepaired. He vowed with fist in air “AS GAWD IS MY WITNESS I WILL DO AWAY WITH THIS AFRONT!”

Bubba but on his safety glasses with the Dale Earnhardt number 3 on the side and grabbed his Milwaukee reciprocating saw. He swaggered to the offending pipe and pushed the trigger. The saw began to vibrate and whir. Bubba was whirring a little too what with the six pack of Bud Light and the headiness of the saw. He wielded the saw as if it were Excalibur and the pipe the Black Knight. The saw came down on the metal with clash and sparks. Bubba jumped back quickly and realized as he did the cut through his left forearm and there was just a moment when bone could be seen.

It didn’t seem real. He could see the cut. He could see the bone. There was no blood and no pain. He was sure that it was just something on his Dale Earnhardt safety glasses.

He reached up with his right hand and hit the overhead light with the saw which caused it to crash and bang and pop and spark and darken. He sat the saw down and grabbed the golden shaded glasses from his nose. There looking back at him was the biggest gash he had ever seen and it was spewing blood like the Cold Duck fountain he had at his wedding.

Bubba looked around for something to stop the bleeding. He moved around like a drunken man squirting blood here and there like a child’s Spirograph. Finally on the corner of his bench he sees the perfect bandage. He reaches out and grabs the dirty red shop rag and wraps it around his forearm. The bleeding is profuse. He sits on his mechanics stool and looks for something else to help stop the bleeding. He sees his industrial size container of super glue. Hey Billy Mays hung from a steel girder it surely would stick some flesh and fat together he reasoned. He pinched the skin up slathered the super glue on the wound and held it together for what he figured was an appropriate amount of time. It worked. It was all good. The wound was sealed except for a few stray squirts of blood. He searched his table for a bandaid but found none. He picked up the brand new role of bright orange duct tape he had just purchased to complete his collection of colored duct tape. He had wondered what he could uses bright orange for and this was just the thing. He wound it around his arm six or seven times used his teeth to tear it off and wiped the blood stains from the rest of the roll. He sat a moment and studied his handiwork. Bubba decided not only was he one hell of a handy man but he wasn’t too shabby an E.R. doctor. Heck that George Clooney didn’t have nothing on him.

Bubba grabbed the saw and just as he was about to assault the offensive pipe again the door from the house opened. Out stepped his pretty little bride, Betty Jean. “Bubba honey, what was all that racket I heard out here” she asked as she stepped through the door in her favorite house dress carrying a big glass of sweet tea. She stopped just as her feet hit the rubber mat and screamed a blood curdling scream just like in the old horror shows. Bubba jumped and once again dropped his saw. “Dammit Betty Jean! You could have made me break my saw! What the hell is all that screamin” Bubba barked.

Betty Jean grabbed her chest and pointed toward the blood splattered all over her newly epoxyed garage floor. “Bubba, did you kill someone” she whispered. Bubba put the saw lovingly on the work bench and grabbed a towel “hell no! I jest cut myself up a little. No big deal don’t worry about it.” Betty Jean looked around the rest of the garage and saw the drywall cut away from the pipe then at Bubba and the blood. “Bubba what did you do to your arm? Why are you so pale” Bubba grabbed a red shop towel and wiped his forehead and sat down. “Well I was trying to cut that pipe and the saw slipped and I cut my arm. I think I saw bone. You know now that you mention it I don’t feel so good.” Betty Jean walked over and began examining Bubba’s arm. “Hun, we need to get you to the doctor. Why did you yell for help?” Bubba grabbed his arm away from his sweet little bride and replied “I don’t need no help. I fixed it up myself. Besides I’m not done cutting this pipe out of here so I can repair the wall.”

Betty Jean walked over to the pipe and gasped “you damned fool! That’s the gas pipe that used to go to the gas dryer before we built the laundry room on. That pipe has gas in it. You would have blown us to hell and back. Now let’s go get you some help for that arm.” Bubba looked at the pipe then at the saw. His shoulders sagged a little and he replied “well now that you mention it. I don’t feel so good.”