I was in an impromptu workshop. It was as if I was taking a woodworking class. The instructor was a famous wood worker I’ve seen on TV. He was looking at my work. It was some kind of a small box. It was hopeless. He struggled to make some constructive criticisms but then finally said I should clean up my work area and go home. I asked if I could come in tomorrow and try to fix the thing. He said no, there was no time left, that this was the end of the class. I was the last person left in the room. My work area was a board laying across two sawhorses. The surface was covered with old bent nails and staples pried from old boards. I started to pick them up but I couldn’t find anyplace to put them…
… so I put them in my mouth. These old bent nails and staples. In my mouth. it didn’t seem that odd at the time. I thought I’d carry them until I found a trash can. I picked up my failed box and left the workshop. After awhile, I remembered that I had a mouthful of sharp and filthy pieces of metal and it finally occurred to me that it was probably not a good thing. I found a trashcan and tried to spit them out. The nails were easy but the staples had attached to the inside of my mouth. All around my tongue and gums the tiny points of the staples caught into my mouth. I reached in and carefully tried to pull them out, one by one. There seemed to be dozens of them. It didn’t seem I’d ever remove them all.