Eye Magnet? No Thanks

Life changing moments, you don't forget those.  Getting married, the birth of a child, starting a new career, when you set out on a new path for your life, those are pretty memorable moments.  However, there are also those moments that are just as important, but instead of starting down a new path you put a "Do Not Enter" sign on it.  That was the day I decided I was never going to be a mechanic.

I could've had a good life as a mechanic.  Learning from the best mechanic around, being able to take over the family business, it would've been easy.  My ten year old brain even went through the checklist of all the fun things that a mechanic gets to do everyday. 

Getting greasy and dirty? - check
Using tools everyday? - check
especially a tool like a B.F.H.? - check
working on many different types of cool cars? - check
Saying what a B.F.H. actually was? - check

Cool, right?  But then I noticed some other things about being a mechanic that weren't so great.

Things like the bloody knuckles you get everyday because a (how my father would say) FRIGGIN' (he didn't say friggin) WRENCH SLIPPED OF THE GOSH DARNED (my dad never said gosh darned) BOLT! or the fact that my brother spent a few months in a full legged cast because an unsecured school bus rolled over his leg (that's right a school bus), or the fact that a doctor had to use something called an Eyemagnet so my father wouldn't lose his eyesight.

What's an Eyemagnet you ask?  First of all, get your mind out of the gutter.  An eyemagnet is not certain bodyparts of the opposite sex, or same sex if that's your thing, that you find yourself constantly gazing at.  An Eyemagnet is exactly what it says it is, a magnet that gets placed on your eye to draw metal out of said eye.

I guess the loop is for removing non-metalic particles from the eye. 

I'm sure Phil was using a B.F.H. underneath a car and had some metal flake off and drop into his eye.  I knew my dad was in pain because he didn't talk and my dad loved to talk.  Nothing.  Not a word.  His eye was bloodshot and painful.  It was hard for me to see my father like this.  He was superman!  Nothing could faze him.  Apparently, flakes of metal are Phil's kryptonite.

 So, off to the doctor's office we went.  Which was another weird thing - dad never went to the doctor, ever.  This was serious. That's probably why mom had us all go along, because she was freaking out about this too and wanted us all there for moral support.  Thankfully, we didn't have to go into the exam room with dad.  He went into the room with a painful and bloodshot eye and came out with an eyepatch.  "Arrr!" I remember him saying in his best pirate voice.  He felt better right away and made sure  to share with us every gruesome detail of the procedure like it was a campfire horror story.

"...and then the doctor took out this instrument called an eyemagnet and put it against my eye and I could feel the metal in there want to break free but it wouldn't so he put it on my eye again and finally the metal screeched out of my eye." 

That's all I needed to hear and it was no more mechanic life for me.  Done.  Sure, I helped dad around the shop, but I didn't pay attention.  Didn't need to because this was not going to be my life long career.   No Eyemagnets for me.