Some of you may know this and some of you may just be learning;
I break things.

I have broken axe handles, maul handles, axe heads, hammer claws, tape measures, I even break tupperware…occasionally.

This is yet another installment in the widening world of

“Things Lief Has Broken”

The special place this implement holds is that I happened to break it three seperate times, in different ways.
1) You may notice this is a pipe. It didn’t come with a pipe but an ash handle. Ash is a wood known for its hardness and used frequently for axes, shovels, and hoes. It was doomed before I got it home.
3) Chronologically this one came next. It was about 2 weeks after the pipe was retrofitted to the tool. These two tines used to be as long as the other two. It was asphalt and well…more about that later, they broke.
2) This happened the other day and was a casual and unexplainable break. I merely stepped on the lever in the way in which it was designed and it snapped.

The last unique and profound thing about this example is that it represents the three types of breaks that I have been victimized by for years.
1) Overuse or Extra-use. I am simply pulling dandelions, just so you know, and I just happened to snap the handle because I just cranked on it too hard. This is how I break things like axe-handles and crow bars.
3) Abuse. Plain and simple, I wanted to see what would happen to the asphalt/concrete if I just, oh, dropped the tines straight down with the added weight of that big ol pipe. This is how I break tape measures.
2) Obtuse. Sometimes things just “explode” in my hand. No malice, no frustration, I have no explanation for how these things happen. Sometimes I am in the wrong place at the wrong time, like when I broke the door lock knob off of Andy’s scirocco…twice. Sometimes my exuberance just gets the best of a nearby inanimate object, ala tupperware.

Farewell sweet Dandelion Puller, you were an able-bodied compatriot in the fight against weeds.

I’m a small bottle brush
I am nerve tissue
Open the root canal
We have an issue

Ever heard those words before? For me it started like this:
Abby and I were out in the yard and she looked bored with my tired self and her soggy stuffed doggy, so I said.

You need a real friend don’tcha?
yeah [...a long pause] but I can’t.
Why not?
cause you’re allergic.

I didn’t even know she knew that word.

Yeah, but I didn’t mean an animal friend I meant a person friend [I was thinking of the fun she had with Bella last weekend.]
yeah.

Later, when the opportunity to shed myself from some histamine induced regret over my daughters inability to have a puppy, I pounced…rather literally.

I didn’t mean for it to become a pet, I didn’t even think we could maintain it’s little frayed ganglia of an existence beyond a night but Mandragora, the grasshopper, is now a pet. She has lived for two days in a wire-mesh bug catcher. Wikipedia informed us of what she was, and the rest of the internet provided a diet.

She seems to be doing well…well except for today when Ang caught Peanut swinging the Bug Catcher in a 3G, 180 degree arc from front to back.

Honey?! What are you doing?

She likes it Mommy! She calmed right down! I think she likes it!!

We may be the only family on the block preparing a grasshopper for spaceflight.