An hour later, while shortening the new bars by exactly one inch on each side, I let the hacksaw blade slither along the back of four knuckles on that same left hand. It was the kind of cut that didn’t bleed. Just sort of got down to that white stuff about two layers under the skin.

By the time the ten o’clock news came on the garage radio, I had also whacked my right thumb with a hammer, pinched the little finger of the left hand in the vise, and had taken a dime-sized nick out of my thumb joint, on the bench grinder. All things considered, not a very good start.

Tuesday was even worse. That evening, while working on the bike, I somehow managed to sink a drill bit into my right thigh while creating four new holes in a plastic fender. Next time, I promised myself, I’d use the vise or maybe ask one of the kids to hold the fender. Kids heal fast, they say.

An hour later, while welding a heat shield onto an exhaust pipe, a large, fat, hot spark leaped inside my tennis shoe and charged right through the nylon sock, onto my instep. In my haste to get the flaming ember out, I hopped around the garage on one foot, like a madman, clutching at the smoking tenny and then creased my forehead on the end of a bare handlebar, taking yet another piece of meat out of my suffering body.

I was so shaken at this point, I shut off the lights and called it quits for the night. I opened a can of suds and lit one last cigar. When I put the cigar in my mouth backwards and burned my lower lip to a Frito-like consistency, I knew that I was in for a “One Of Those Weeks.”

You know the kind - where you can’t do anything right. Where everything you touch causes you considerable grief. Or pain. Or both. Every move you make is clumsy. You drop wrenches, snap bolts, stab yourself with screwdrivers. Slam knuckles into hard fins. Rap your shins on protruding axle nuts. Pinch tender bits of flesh with the handles of pliers. Run a few staples into your fingernails. You know - the usual stuff.

By Wednesday, I had the bike almost ready to race, but my body was looking like I’d just spent considerable time in a Turkish prison. My right palm was blistered from picking the bike up by the hot exhaust pipe. Gasoline had splashed into my eyes and I’d sat down in a shallow pool of oil on the garage floor. My right big toe was throbbing because I dropped a shock on that particular foot. The left big toe was throbbing because I somehow managed to set a large, red Craftsman toolbox down on it.

The left knee was swollen and red from accidentally kneeling on a master link. The right knee was swollen, red and blistered from kneeling on a hot welding tip. I had also managed to get gasoline, contact cleaner, chain lube and fork oil on each and every open cut and wound on my body. No wonder nothing got infected...the chemicals killed all the germs!

By the time I closed the garage door and turned off the lights that Wednesday night, I promised myself that I was not going to report to the starting line the following weekend looking like a loser of a Lions/Christians semifinal. With only an hour or so of work left to do on the bike, I figured I’d take it super easy. No cuts, bruises, burns, scrapes, contusions or soft-tissue injuries.

So, the next evening, with caution being foremost in my mind, I wrapped up the machine for race day. By working very methodically, no skin was sacrificed to the Wrench Gods. I used only ratchets and box-end tools and turned only one flat at a time. Working slowly, patiently and carefully, I managed to complete the bike in two hours, with no additional injuries.

Things were looking up.

Friday was spent quietly watching television. I didn’t even watch violent shows. Lawrence Welk. The Muppets. Oriental Wok Cooking, on Channel 52. Really low-key.

Saturday I spent mostly in the house, taking it easy, letting the wounds heal. It looked like I might be a whole man by Sunday. The most dangerous thing I did that Saturday was to go shopping and fight over a chuck steak with a fat, old lady at the local supermarket. She gave up after I pinned her cleanly with a frozen turkey and a small mound of Canadian bacon. No sweat.

Saturday night, I sat around quietly picking scabs and mentally preparing for Sunday. At that point, my body was about 95 percent healed and I was looking forward to a pleasant, no-injury race day.

With nothing good on the tube, I retired to my office and decided to kill a few hours before bed, by catching up on some paperwork. Nice, safe paperwork. After paying a few small bills, and straightening out a messy desk, I decided to send my entry in for the next District enduro. After all, post-entry costs five bucks more than pre-entry, right?

So, I filled out the entry, wrote a check for the club and stuffed the whole works into an envelope, with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. I stifled a yawn. Sleepy-time was near and I’d made it through the last few days without any more injuries.

Satisfied, I folded the flap on the envelope, ran my wet tongue along the length of the glued surface and immediately paper-cut both corners of my mouth and the whole top of my tongue. I ran to the bathroom and stared into the mirror, horrified! Blood streamed over my chin and dropped into the white basin of the sink. The only sensible thing I could do was put bandages over the cuts and duct-tape my jaws shut for the night.

Oh, sure, I raced the next day. After all that, wouldn’t you?