con-cuss-shin

As most of us humans know the shin is defined as the front part of the leg from the knee to the ankle and/or the shinbone or tibia, especially its sharp edge or front portion. All who have brought this portion of their leg forcefully against a stationary or semi-stationary object will agree that this action will bring about pain. The magnitude of pain is in direct proportion to the amount of force, the degree the object is stationary and the solidness of this object.

This painful scenario, described above with only a small degree of emotion, happened to me just recently down in the basement. I was taking something down to the workshop and failed to turn on the one light that would have revealed a protruding corner of a wooden box. This trek had been made many times and there was never any shin danger in that part of the basement.

I was in a hurry so the contact was forceful. Much pain was involved. It did leak red. I was not happy, but did not cuss, since I gave the X-rated language up years ago. The box made quite an impression on me, but no impression was made on the box.

There was no way that I could blame this pain on someone else since I was the one that placed the box there. The box was put there to help GM3 and GM4 (small grandsons) reach the flipper controls on the pinball machine that occupies that corner. Even though it caused them much fun, that didn’t lessen the pain to any great degree. I do not regret causing them fun, just not moving the box when it was over.

Knowledge should cause action or at least face one with the decision of whether or not to act. This painful knowledge caused me to move the box out of the way and prevent future collisions – ‘A man has to know his limitations’ – in the physical or the spiritual. ec