At least that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it. It did seem to work.

Erm, I mean your son hopping around spitting profanities then looking for approval of his work ethic. Not the falling off the roof thing.

I’d like to add that martial arts use yells to “focus” the power of your strikes, so perhaps there’s something about yelling that encourages or induces you to give your action that extra 5% boost or whatnot. I don’t know why it would do so, because one would think you’re splitting your attention. Any studies done on this?

When eldest was almost three, he discovered this property for himself. He had just whacked his thumb full swing with his 3/4″ head hammer. It was an injury that in any other context would have had him screaming bloody murder and justifiably. But instead he started hopping around and yelling profanities in his piping little voice, grasping his thumb. Within minutes, he uttered his final “fucking damn – DAMN!!! He had noticed something about his wound – it was bleeding. I half expected him to start wailing, because he hates it when people bleed (and being a roofer at the time, I came home with bleeders pretty regular like).

Instead he positively beamed at me. “I workin hard papa?” half statement, half questioning. (I like to say that blood, sweat and dirt mean you’re actually working – I still say that actually.) Unfortunately, he decided that profanity only helped with work related injuries – later that same evening, when a toy or book fell on the injured thumb, he screamed bloody murder – which again, is totally understandable. Split thumbnails really hurt.

I think I may have to just blog about my adventure, falling off a roof headfirst – suffice for now that I was mostly unconscious the moment I fell, before I hit the ground…Also suffice to say that it is remarkable I am not a quad or dead.

In the rare case the rust buster doesn’t work I resort to BFI, Brute Force and Ignorance, often a BFH, and/or the fire hatchet.