When It Comes to Safety Features, Don't Wait

OUCH!! I learned a valuable lesson this morning. When it comes to safety features, don't tell yourself, "I'll grab that in a minute." Today I'm teaching preschool and the lesson plan tells me to teach the kids how to make applesauce. Being a huge applesauce fan, we have the official sauce maker & food strainer machine. I assembled it, mostly, but the safety screw holding the metal strainer piece in place was just out of reach. "I'll grab that in a minute," I told myself. I got everything else in place and of course, forgot the screw.

Everything would have been okay, except that curiosity got the best of me and I stuck my face on the back side of the contraption to see just how much clearance there was where the "trash" comes out the back of the machine. I've always wondered how the seeds can come out in the trash, but the "fruit" mush doesn't. Being the engineer that I am, I had to check out the tolerances on my mighty fine machine. So...did I mention the metal strainer piece is spring loaded? With a really stiff spring? Yeah, I know. I cranked the handle to see how it all worked and WHAMMO!! Bloody lip. I'm an idiot. But, I'll probably NEVER forget the screw again. Hey, at least I didn't nail one of the preschoolers. They would be traumatized and never eat applesauce again.