Oh Shit! I Really Hurt Him!

'Oh Shit! I really did it this time,' I thought.

It happened while I was carrying the eight foot step ladder out of the dining room. The ladder was laying on its side against the back wall, and I had picked it up just as it was, in the same horizontal position. I then swung it around carefully so as to avoid bumping or scraping it on  any of the freshly painted walls, or against the other two step ladders that were standing in the room. A simple enough task.

In spite of my precautions, however, and as I carried the ladder into the next room,I felt the far end that was behind me strike something hard and solid with a "Wack!"

I looked behind me and, to my horror, saw Khan, the Turkish painter, on his knees, and holding one hand over his left eye. I realized that I had struck him in the eye with the ladder as I was walking by, and, it seemed, Khan was badly hurt.

It was all through my own carelessness, I thought. It could have been avoided, but now I had injured someone. And I also thought that if things weren't going badly enough for me already, this will mean the end of my job here altogether.

Khan wasn;t moving. He was hunched over-almost in a ball, covering his eye, and seemingly wincing in pain.

"Are you allright?" I asked as I put the ladder down. But Kahn didn't reply.

"Oh Shit!, I'm sorry," I said, and I asked again: "Are you allright?"

The Irish Foreman was standing nearby.

"I'm sorry..I started to say again, when the Irish Foreman interrupted:

"Forget about that. Go get some ice."

"Ice?" I asked. "Where?"

"In the refrigerator." he replied.

I quickly darted into the kitchen and opened the top freezer door of the refrigerator, only to discover, to my dismay, that it was dark and empty, and that the power was turned off. I looked around nervously. I remembered the garage and searched for a refrigerator or a freezer there. But none was to be found.

I returned to where the Irish Foreman was standing over Khan's hunched form. "Let me see," the Irish Foreman was saying. "let me see." But Khan would not move.

"There's no ice." I said. "The power's off. Do you want me to drive to town to find some?"

The Irish Foreman didn't reply. "Move that ladder." He said instead. "Get that ladder out of here.

I picked up the ladder and moved it into the other room. When I returned I was very surprised to see Khan standing up and laughing, with the Irish Foreman laughing alongside him. No longer holding his eye. Khan seemed fine.

"I got you." Khan said. "I got you man."

I suppose I should have felt annoyed to find out that it was just another practical joke, but all I could feel at first was a flood of relief over the fact that I hadn't injured him. But I still wasn't sure if I hadn't struck Khan with the ladder, so I asked:

"So did I ....did I even hit you with it?"

Khan shook his head. "No man!" I did this:  and he demonstrated by firmly slapping another ladder nearby.

I continued to feel tremendously relieved. So Khan had slapped the ladder when my back was turned, and feigned the whole injury. He had kept his covered eye towards me, and was able to wink at the Irish Foreman with his exposed eye.

'Thank God it was just a joke, and that he's OK,' I kept thinking. And I said:

"You  really had me going. You Got me."

And, of course, none of this had anything to do with putting paint on a house.