The Bent Piece of Gridwall That May Have Saved Me . . .

Enough people expressed concern after I mentioned the piece of gridwall that I guess this story needs to come next.

This is the star of the story – it is also the end of the story.  Here is the rest . . .

When we unload the truck and build our show booth, the gridwall is usually the first thing that comes off.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Build the booth first, then put products into it.  For trivia buffs, it takes 22 pieces of gridwall to build our booth – 17 of them are 4’ x 7’ and 5 are 2’ x 7’.  I strap them to the side of the truck when we’re traveling – the big pieces together and the little pieces together.  And yes, they are heavy.

But we had new rolling racks for some of our merchandise (that’s another story) and I needed to pull them off first.  I realized afterward that for the first time, there were no boxes holding up the gridwall as I took them off the truck one by one.  So I pulled several pieces out from the wall a little and leaned them against the remaining pieces.  Kept repeating the process after one or two pieces came off.  But apparently I must have missed repositioning it at least once.

I never saw it coming – in an instant, I was slammed against the side of the truck by ten or eleven pieces of gridwall.  My head hit the side of the truck (OK, I’m fine – so I’ll laugh when some of you think that may have been the hardest part of me anyway) and the weight of the gridwall sat me down hard.  I have already been dealing with some back issues for a few months, so my first thought was that all of my chiropractor’s good work the day before had just been wasted.

That bent piece of gridwall was the first piece that hit me – and then it hit the truck wall after I got knocked down and supported all the rest of the pieces and kept them off me.  I really don’t know what might have happened otherwise, but that’s several hundred pounds of gridwall and I assume it could have been more than a little uncomfortable.

As it was, I was very sore – but the next morning I wasn’t nearly as sore as I expected to be.  And I made it through the show fine.  When I got home from Allentown, I went to the chiropractor (which is where I got the bell tower picture in the previous post).  He put me up on his table and just laughed – listed about seven things that had been knocked out of place.  And then he put them back where they belonged.  Of course, my major worry was the upcoming golf trip (I am in Georgia playing golf for three days this week).

So thanks for your concern.  I’m fine – but I’m also fortunate.  And I’m thankful that it wasn’t worse.