Yesterday

I moved to Portland and don't have much of anything, so I have been working day labor for a cool guy that pays under the table. It is ideal in the sense of not having any stability, it doesn't pay well enough to interfere with food stamps and he treats me well enough that I keep coming back. All the work is off the books and everyone involved understands that the situation is a little bit sketchy, a shit storm could tear the whole thing up.
The guy I work for is a sweet heart, he really is. Divorced with one son that he home schools, he usually doesn't work on the weeks he has custody of his boy. He loves the crap out of his kid.

Alright, so I get to the job site and we are finishing the molding in a bedroom. In addition, the boards around the doors in the kitchen need to be ripped down, cut, sanded and nailed back up. We work hard and before long we are breaking for lunch. I go out and get some ketchup. We return and get back to it. Power tools are in use. My crew mate is using the chop saw to cut 45s from the top piece on the base boards and so the boss says to use the table saw. If you don't already know, table saws are the scariest power tool ever. All those eight digit shop teachers can explain why.
Then the boss asks, "you know how to use one of these right?"
I give him the best dumb look I can muster and he launches into the short version of how not to loose a hand, while also removing the fence and exposing the raw, finger devouring, scraggly toothed saw blade.
I say, "yeah, no problem." He goes inside.
I grab a random board and start up the saw. I prep my bag of fake blood. I push the stick through the whining saw. I yelp and squirt ketchup into my hand, struggle into the house and repeat, "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god" until the boss reacts. He pops his head out from the bedroom and sees me clutching my hands together and ketchup dripping on the floor. He darts into the bathroom and struggles to remove the plastic off of a roll of toilet paper, "just hold still, here!"
His heart is audible and his mind is racing through all the protocols of what to do, 911? Drive to the hospital? How much is that going to be? Will he sue? Maybe we could work out a co-pay. Maybe it would be best to toss him on the curb and hope he flags someone down.

I could have dragged the scene out a lot further, but the absolute panic that radiated from this guy made me a bit reluctant. Also, the idea that a roll of toilet paper was going to help my severed hand was also pretty hilarious. So, I bashfully murmured, "April Fools"