Klutz is as Klutz Does

There is a reason I am not allowed within a 10-foot radius of my wife’s nice tool box or that she shudders to see a hammer in my hand.

There is a reason I am only permitted to hold the television remote from time to time, providing I am not mashing buttons, while a line of crime scene tape marks a no-Tim zone around the television.

It is apparently a nice television. One day I’ll get close enough to see.

I am the anti-McGyver. Instead of using a paper clip to fashion a weapon to escape from villains, I would sustain a cut trying to bend the clip which would require a trip to the hospital, tourniquet and amputation.

So those who know me would surely have cringed when I agreed to venture into Panther Swamp to check out a “muck fire.”

Brian Goddin, a spokesperson for the Division of Forestry, drove me deep into the woods and got out to explain how firefighters were carving out fire lines and to show me the organic fuel for the fire.

I was blissfully following Goddin’s voice, assuring him that I was “fine” – a signal to run for the hills – and had proper footwear since they were not just sneakers, but really old sneakers.

I was following Goddin’s voice, unfortunately; not his footsteps. No sooner had those assurances about my shoes escaped my mouth than my left leg, straight to the knee, sunk into the muck.

I thought I was the villain in one of those old movies set in exotic Africa and had just stepped in quicksand.

My camera, slung over my shoulder, took a dive toward the muck, dangling precariously by its strap over a long slough of mud.

I was looking at Brian as if I needed a rope and a tow vehicle to get me out of the stuff.

My brain, functioning at the logic level it normally does in such situations, figured the ideal escape route would be for me to use my right foot and leg as leverage to escape whatever had locked onto my left leg.

And, of course, I managed to put my right foot directly into the muck, without managing to get my left foot out.

I was doing the Hokey-Pokey with an inability to shake it all about.

Whatever impulse Brian might have had to laugh aloud vanished behind a mask of guilt for having put me in such a situation.

I quickly explained that he could hardly be responsible for taking into the woods a dolt who would somehow manage to try to tread where bulldozers could not.

Had I been observant, one glance at the bulldozers on the side of a nearby logging road, caked in mud, treads gummed, I might have thought better about following Brian into the bog.

But hindsight is crystal clear and at that moment my legs were knee deep in the muck and the pressing thought was whether I could extricate either without losing a shoe or even foot.

I thought about leaving one or both shoe behind if it meant getting out of there.

But I applied all the pressure I could muster down my left leg and the sneaker remained on as I pulled – with Brian as anchor – my leg from the mud. The right foot followed, but oh so slowly.

Those sneakers remain in my front yard drying out; my hope is that they may again serve as actual shoes instead of a cautionary tale.

The morale of that tale is to have a chaperone every time I go near sharp or dangerous objects – which could be anything.

I was the only one on my block as a kid to be hit by a car, and just to stand out I got hit not once but twice.

My teenage friends once had the bright idea that the quickest way off a theater roof was to swing, Tarzan-like, by the branch of large oak tree adjacent to the theater and down to another branch and land cleanly on the ground.

My friends made it easily. They weighed around 120-140 pounds. I was wrestling that year of high school at 189 pounds.

Physics was not in my favor. I missed the branch exchange by a wide margin, falling roughly 14 feet face first onto a paved driveway.

But I can find physical danger without trying.

I once sought to purchase a small motorcycle to cut the costs of commuting. I once sold motorcycles for a living through college. Never rode one.

I did fine on the test drive. Then I had to navigate through a backyard fence to park the bike. I turned the throttle and was off, only my rear end in contact with the bike as it traveled across the backyard.

I smacked into the side of the house, taking down the garden hose holder and hose, before I was ejected and splayed across the backyard as the bike continued until crashing into the fence.

We might have arrived at a price if the seller wasn’t laughing so hard he had go to the restroom to prevent an accident.

There is also a jet-ski injury.

I just wasn’t actually riding the jet ski.

Just sauntering along the beach and, sure enough, I leaned over a jet ski in the surf to have a look at the controls. Just as I did wave action pushed the jet ski closer –on top of my foot and against my shin bone.

Bad abrasions on both feet, deep bruise on my leg and the rest of the weekend spent without shoes and in pain.

So the next time I am called about an incident in the woods or the bay or anywhere outside, I’ll be going by the Sheriff’s Office and picking up a Kevlar vest, heavy boots, helmet and shield.

I never know when jet skis will attack.