I’ve always been something of a ne’er-do-well…

…in case that hasn’t come across.

And my older brother has often been a generous benefactor, not always in small ways. In 1972 I got my left leg torn off, among several other lesser major injuries. I was broke, of course, because I’m almost always broke. Insurance paid for the hospitalization but not for the prosthesis. The prosthetics guy wanted $500, cash on the barrel head, and my older brother went into hock to get it.

I’m actually leading up to a funny story here.

My brother wouldn’t hear of interest, even though he borrowed the money so of course he was paying interest. “Just pay back the five hundred bucks when you can,” he said.

It took a while of course, but I did. Back then his principal ride was a 600cc BMW so I decided to do something that, for me, qualified as classy. I went to a high-end motorcycle shop and bought a fancy Bell Star helmet.

Then I stuffed five crisp new $100 bills in the brainbucket and left it on his sofa while he was at work.

He called me back later that evening. “That’s neater’n shit!” he yelled. He liked his new helmet very much, but then went through a period of terror lest it be scratched. He called me one time: “Almost scratched your helmet today,” he said. “Ran over a cat.”

Finally, inevitably, the helmet received its first scratch. It wasn’t anything dramatic, I think somebody knocked it off a desk or something. “I actually feel better now,” he said.

That’s kind of the way I feel about that cordless drill he sent me last month, which fell off a ladder and received its first scratch today.