I cracked a tooth while lowering a stabilizer jack. (Seriously.)

Smack!

You can file this one under stupid mistakes, ouchie, and public service announcement.

Back in April, we rolled back into town after being away for about a month. As per our normal routine, we did all of our essential ‘End of Trip’ tasks but left a couple of things for later. The following Tuesday morning I woke up, brewed some coffee, and went outside to complete some of those unfinished chores. First thing I noticed was that our stabilizer jacks were still raised. We generally lower those even when we’re not living in the Airstream because it keeps the trailer from rocking like a boat whenever we go inside it. So I grabbed my drill, attached a 3/4” socket, squatted down, and slipped the socket over the bolt that controls the height of the front passenger-side jack. I can never remember whether I need to drill forward or in reverse to raise (or lower) the jacks, so I’ve gotten into the habit of lightly feathering the drill to see what happens. If the jack moves in the direction I want—bingo!—just keep going. If the jack doesn’t budge and the drill feels like it wants to jerk out of my grip, I simply flip the drill’s rotational direction and keep on trucking.

Well. On this particular morning, I apparently feathered the drill with a bit too much gusto.

The drill didn’t just feel like it wanted to jerk out of my hand. It actually jerked completely free of my grip, whipped 180 degrees around, and smacked my dumbass squarely in the jaw. The video footage doesn’t adequately convey the stunned shock I felt as I processed what had just happened. I was absolutely certain I had just broken my jaw. Back inside the house, I stretched my mouth open and shut like a fish and systematically pressed my fingers along the perimeter of my jaw, hunting for sources of acute pain. As I did this, I became aware of a metallic taste in my mouth and noticed several unidentified rocky shards resting on my tongue. When my self-examination failed to produce any sharp pain I decided that my jaw was probably not broken after all. I then stuck my index finger and thumb into my mouth in order to extract the foreign objects that were suspended in pooling saliva. A visual inspection of the two largest pieces confirmed my suspicion that they were remnants of my lower rear molar, sheared off by the impact of the butt of the drill which slammed my lower jaw into my upper jaw like an 8 ball into the corner pocket. I spit all the remaining smaller fragments down the drain, figuring they weren’t worth the effort of pulling out with my fingers. The top and outside edge of the damaged molar was spiky and jagged to the touch. The bathroom mirror also revealed a light cut scrawled across my jawline that was oozing little droplets of bright red blood.

Fortunately—if that word has any place in this post—my dentist is only about a five minute walk away from our house. (I’ll be forever grateful that this happened when we were at home in close proximity to a dentist that I know and trust, rather than boondocking far away from civilization.) I called at 7:30 a.m. and they said I could come in an hour. Slightly less than three hours after I arrived, I emerged with a temporary crown and an appointment for a permanent replacement a few weeks down the road. It could have been worse. My dentist told me that just the other day he had a patient with a similar impact wound to his face that cracked his tooth so thoroughly that it had to be completely removed. Ouch.

I guess the moral of the story is this: be careful when using a powerful drill to do things like raise and lower your stabilizer jacks, lest you too get smacked in the face with the butt of a drill! It’s proooobably also a good idea to employ your drill’s clutch—which I did not do when I got slapped in the face like I had just insulted Will Smith’s wife.