I've worked for the phone company for over 31 years where we\u00a0have acronyms for everything. I had a real rough day in the garage\u00a0the other day and I decided to put some acronyms together to\u00a0try and classify what kind of day I had. Most people know what\u00a0RPM and MPG stand for. Here are some new ones.<\/p>\n
You know it's going to he a had day if your F-COD is < 10:00\u00a0AM. You feel like you have really cut a path through he jungle if\u00a0your CPD is > 5. At the time it's awful, but you usually look back, point and laugh for every STFOOMF you get. A BMFNB is\u00a0worse than scraping fingernails on a chalkboard. But really the\u00a0worst is if you get a major PDM.<\/p>\n
F-COD stands for First Cut Of the Day. It's a Saturday. You\u00a0get your chores done early; wash the car, go to the bank, go to the\u00a0Post Office, service the wife and mow the lawn. Not necessarily\u00a0it that order of course. So you are done with the chores and now\u00a0you have time to work on your favorite project in the garage. I\u00a0had a bad Saturday the other day when after finishing my chores I\u00a0went for some aspirin in the medicine cabinet only to notice that a\u00a0good bit of blood was drooling down the back of my hand. So\u00a0instead of just getting aspirin for my sore back, I had to clean up\u00a0my hand in the slop sink enough so the band-aid would stick.\u00a0Now here is another thing I want to zoint out. Why do they make\u00a0and why do women buy those teeny, itty little band-aids? You\u00a0know the ones. They're so small you have a hard time opening\u00a0them because your fingers are so much bigger than they are.\u00a0These things would be fine for a cut on a mouse or maybe an ant,\u00a0but not for any kind of cut that a real man would bother to try and\u00a0stop the bleeding with. If I have a cut that small, I don't even\u00a0bother with it, unless it's real small in diameter but maybe 2\u00a0inches deep. You know, like an ice pick wound, or maybe something\u00a0from a stray nail gun shot. Maybe then I would use those\u00a0fairy band-aids. What we real men need are Man-Daids. something\u00a0a couple inches in diameter with enough gauze padding to\u00a0do some real soaking up. But at least I make the effort to find
\nproper, clean stuff to tend to my wounds. I've seen some of my\u00a0old-timer neighbors with their entire finger wrapped up with black\u00a0electrical tape. I ask if the tape was just to stop the bleeding or if\u00a0it was holding the chopped off piece of appendage in place. They\u00a0usually don't want to answer.<\/p>\n
So I sort through all the fairy hand-aids and put a Man-Daid on\u00a0my F-COD and head hack out to the garage and start on the real\u00a0work. Today's project is to take out the dash in the Europa. Real\u00a0easy on an Elan; Royal pain in the butt on a Europa. After finding\u00a0hidden rivets and nuts on the console, I managed to pull the console\u00a0out without tearing the 32-year-old ABS plastic. The dash\u00a0itself had all sorts of extra supports. The Elan is a real flexi flyer.\u00a0When you go through a turn, the wood dash flexes and creaks\u00a0with the turn. On a Europa there are all sorts of extra braces to tie\u00a0everything to the body. Almost like they thought the wood dash\u00a0would add stiffness to the body. So I continue to unbolt and unscrew\u00a0and drill out hits and pieces that hold the dash in place. On\u00a0this day I had to stop several times during the project to swear at\u00a0inanimate objects and stick the bleeding part of me in my mouth\u00a0and go find additional Man-Daids. At least the cuts weren't real bad.<\/p>\n
This particular Europa dash removal job was especially nasty. I\u00a0had started out with my F-COD at about 10:30, by the end of the\u00a0day my CPD (Cuts Per Day) was at 5 and to top it off, whilst releasing\u00a0the grip of my vice grips I got a real good PDM (Pinched\u00a0Da Meat). It was a tough day. Could he worse. Sometimes as\u00a0I'm talking to my buddy Paul Quiniff. I will notice evidence of a\u00a0real good Smashed the **** Out Of My Finger (STFOOMF).\u00a0Sometimes he laughs, sometimes not, depending on how manypain killing Old Styles he has had since the incident. Another\u00a0thing to watch out for, but luckily I haven't had in a long time is a\u00a0BMFNB. I keep my fingernails cut pretty short because a cut\u00a0fingernail is WAY better than a \"Bent My Finger Nail Back\". O-o-o-o, gives me the willies just thinking about it.<\/p>\n
Only once in my life did I have to go to the emergency room\u00a0because of a cut. On that occasion I was working with my\u00a0brother-in-law Gregski on some stubborn Elan shock inserts that\u00a0did not want to come out. Greg was pushing and I was holding, or\u00a0maybe the other way around, I don't remember. All I know was\u00a0that the palm of my left hand was the recipient of the sharp end of\u00a0the big screwdriver. It went in pretty deep and was bleeding\u00a0pretty good. I stuck the bleeding part in my mouth and knew I had\u00a0a problem when I had to go gulp! But I digress....<\/p>\n
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