Instructions

I thought I would be disciplined with any work I did myself on the house, break the habit of a lifetime and read instructions before I start a job.  I now know why I eschewed this type of advice in the first place.  Once the loft was clean I got some new insulation and started to roll it out, but before I got going I looked at the manufacturers advice ...

The installer should wear overalls, gauntlets goggles and respirator, and have the overalls tucked into socks and gauntlets.  Suitably attired, I got into the loft and separated the first roll.  By this stage the temperature inside the overalls had risen to a balmy 40 deg, the goggles had slipped to a jaunty angle and steamed up and the hood from the overalls had slipped over my right eye.  The respirator seemed to work OK on inhalation, but when I exhaled the easiest escape root for the air was between the mask and the bridge of my nose, causing a stream of air to blow into my left eye making it water and blurring the vision in my only uncovered eye.

So there I am, up in the loft, in subdued lighting, enveloped in swirling dust, ballanced on top of the joists holding the instructions in my heavilty gauntleted hands wondering what I do next.  By tilting my head back 90 deg and to the left 45 deg and holding my breath I can read the next part of the instructions.  "Take the scissors and cut the required length, never tear the insulation material".  ..  I look at my gauntlets and the impossibly small finger holes in the scissors, and off come the gauntlets, the goggles, and temporarily the respirator (to facilitate the voicing of a few expletives) and I get on with the job.

I'm under the impression that instructions are written by the health and safety department and the main aim is to avoid litigation.  If I had got any eye irritation I was not following their instructions, absolving them from any responsibility.  If I had worn the goggles it was only a matter of time before I stepped off the joists and fell to certain death onto some startled cats in the room below.  Imagine how they would've been traumatised, lying peacefully one moment, then out of the air drops a cursing, dust covered cross between Edward Scissor Hands and Quasimodo, trailing a length of loft insulation behind.