RE: Hall of wit and epicness.
July 12, 2013 at 11:27 pm
(This post was last modified: July 12, 2013 at 11:31 pm by Rahul.)
(July 12, 2013 at 7:32 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Then you haven't had a severe enough burn.
You guys know what creosote is?
It's that black tarlike stuff they put on telephone poles to keep them from rotting. It's a carcinogenic. It'll eat you too.
I found that out the hard way.
I was working for my dad's construction company in the oil fields in East Texas. One day our job was to pull up all the poles that carried the electrical cabling to the pumping units on the oil wells so the poles could be replaced.
All the cabling had already been dropped and hauled off. Our job was just to remove those poles. My dad told me to watch out for what sounded like to me "chrisoak". I didn't know what he was talking about. I thought maybe something like Poison Oak because there were high bushes right against the poles and I was allergic to Poison Ivy. So, ok. Whatever.
The backhoe would yank up the pole and lay it down. Then we would wrap a chain around the middle of the pole, the backhoe would pick it up, and we'd move it to a long trailer to be hauled off.
My job was to hold onto one end of the pole to make sure it didn't start spinning around. It's Texas, over 100 degrees, as I'm holding the poles steady I'm resting my bare forearms on these things and sweating like a pig.
After a few hours, my forearms start to burn a little. An hour later they start to really burn. Another hour later, my teeth are clenched and I'm just pacing inbetween what we're doing next. Just pacing like mad and clenching all over.
Finally the older guys I'm working with (who are all in their 40's and 50's. I'm like 19.) fill me in on what the fuck creosote is.
It was the most agonizing shit ever. Because it just went on and on and on and there was nothing I could do. My dad comes driving by to check up on us. I walk up to dad's truck, tell him what happened, and ask him if I could run to the house real quick (which was less than a mile away), and scrub this shit off my arms.
My dad casually looks at his watch, looks at me, and says, "You've got three more hours till work is over."
Burned all the skin off the inside of my arms. Huge fucking solid scabs. One completely covering my right inside forearm. The other covering my left.
That's called an object lesson. Never will forget what the fuck creosote is.