“Man, we knocked this lot out quick!” he thought to himself, looking up after the concluding push of the shovel.  Turning towards his co-worker, Pete caught the tail end of his favorite human activity to witness: unexpected sharp pain–albeit temporary–caused by extreme focus on less important things.  In other words, he just watched his buddy nearly knock himself out as he hit his head on a post that intense shoveling had hidden from sight.

As if physical touch could heal all wounds, Pete kept a constant hand on the man’s shoulder while laughing and asked, “Oh man.  Are you okay?  You really hit that thing hard.”

“Stop laughing man,” the third worker on the project admonished, shaking his head.

“It’s okay,” the injured man said, still not himself.  “It’s not my head, but my cheek.  My mouth was open and I bit my cheek really hard.  Ahh!..shit,” he let out, trying to maintain his man card.

His fingertips still in contact with the wounded man, Pete nearly doubled over with a guffaw that revealed itself to be only the engine of a freight train carrying mankind’s most precious cargo–uncontrollable giggling.

“Jesus Pete!” the third man again chimed in, attempting to add some reasonableness to the situation.

“You don’t…giggle…understand,” Pete managed.  “Watching that happen was like seeing a double rainbow.  I can’t let social graces ruin this moment!  Teehee.  He almost knocked himself out and bit his cheek.  Man…hahaha…I wish I could’ve seen him when his mouth opened.  It was probably all the way.  BwaHAAhahaha!  Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed that when people bite their tongue or cheek their mouths open to the extreme.  It’s like upon chomping down the body screams to the mouth, ‘OPEN!!  Open, open, open!  Disregard any other thoughts; just open to your widest.  Now!  And whatever you do, don’t bite down again until we can fully assess the damage.'”

After he had finished his defense, as one they asked, “What’s wrong with you?”