Watch your fingers!

I got the angle grinder out to play. It didn’t want to be my friend.

I followed the instructions to put on the handle, the safety guard, the inner flange, the disc and the outer flange, which is tightened with a special spanner.

Then I let rip. Every molecule of me vibrated, and every other sound in the world was blocked out. All there was in the world was me and this beast.

When I stopped letting rip, all the things flew off onto the off-cut I’d bought as a cutting board with a massive judder, and my head rattled. No fingers were removed.

Mr Pandammonium tried tightening it in case my puny girl-arms weren’t strong enough to tighten it properly.

Then I let rip. Then I stopped letting rip. All the things flew off onto the off-cut with a massive judder, and my head rattled. No fingers were removed.

By this time, I was too scared to try again. I found a video of a man taking an angle grinder of the same make and model as mine out the box and assembling it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to watch it because I had to go to Pilates.

At Pilates, I asked a carpenter who goes if he used an angle grinder at work. He did. I asked him what I might have done wrong, but he concluded I’d done everything right.

His wife suggested I watch a video online.