Long Islanders

36 - The Goofball's Mishaps

But that was far from the only stupid thing Nick ever did. There was the incident of the library doors, as well.

The library doors in the hangar were never locked. They always swung easily open when pushed. Everyone was aware of the doors, having pushed through them enough times to remember.

Jimmy was talking with another coworker near the library doors on a Monday morning when Nick stormed past them angrily and went to shove open the doors.

Only to slam right into them.

Jimmy bent over laughing as Nick reeled back from the doors, holding his head and swearing. The other coworker, stumbling from laughter, made his way to the doors and tried the doorknob.

"Lock," he managed to rasp out, leaning against the door for balance as he continued to laugh. "They installed a lock."

A lock on the doors! Jimmy straightened and wiped the tears from his eyes as Nick, after shooting angry glares at the two, stomped off, his face red and hand pressed against his forehead, still cursing.

A third incident at the workplace Jimmy was not present for, but heard from another coworker.

A fire had started in the hangar, originating in one of the lights thirty feet high in the air, dangling from the hangar ceiling. Nick had grabbed a fire extinguisher and raced to stand beneath the flaming light.

Aiming the fire extinguisher up at the light, he had shot the foam straight up into the air. The extinguisher only had a reach of fifteen feet, however, and the foam went up to its maximum height, paused, then descended directly on Nick's head.

Simultaneously with this drama, a mechanic had sprinted over to the switchbox and cut the power to the light, putting out the fire. As he turned to survey his handiwork, he saw Nick, covered with white foam, strutting around and claiming that it was his actions that had extinguished the fire!

Even though Jimmy wasn't there for that, he still howled on hearing it.

Not everything stupid that Nick did occurred in the workplace, however. Jimmy heard plenty of stories about his mishaps outside of the airplane hangar, and all of them made him howl.

There was the time Nick was attempting to fix his shed, which bordered a busy road. Carrying a big piece of wood over his head, he marched up the ladder to his shed roof. As he stepped onto the roof, a truck sped by and the gust of wind it generated caught the board and blew him right off of the roof of the shed.

As Nick continued working on his shed, he backed his pickup truck up towards the structure, the rest of the wood he needed being in the truck bed. But he ended up not stopping when he needed to and backed his truck right into his shed, only causing more work for himself.

Another incident involving a truck had Nick, who worked as a volunteer firefighter, helping a firetruck back up. Gesturing to the driver, he directed the firetruck back...right over his own foot.

Not to mention the time he took his boat out on the lake. It was only when he noticed the water rising in the boat that he realized he had forgotten to put the plug in, causing the water to seep in.

All of these incidents were shared around the hangar by the mechanics, and were also told in hangars they visited. Nick and his accidents made everyone howl.

Except for Nick, of course.