So, I got the call for this gate job, and it really didn't sound like that bad a gig, compared to the usual anyway. Just a little scraping and crushing from a moving gate, not too bad. Plus, they wanted me to bring the kid along, not to also get crushed by the gate, but just for a simple running shot they could put the "no" sign around.

And that should be a good thing, right? I mean, I should be happy to be able to spend a little extra time with the kid. I was happy about it. So, first of all, the gate hurt a helluva lot more than I expected. Why do we need such forceful automated gates? What happened to people just opening gates with their own body? What happened to people doing ANYTHING with their own bodies? Damn automatic door, remote-controlled, moving parts world is causing me a lot more grief than is really necessary. Still, that's what pays my bills, so whatever.

Anyway, I get slammed around and scraped up for a while by the damn flying metal gate so the director can get the shot just right. Then when he does, he announces he wants to set it all up again to shoot the other half of the gate doing the same thing?

So I just blow up at that point.

"We can't even trust people to figure out BOTH ends of the gate can crush them? We can't just show me getting crushed by ONE side and let people realize that the other side is the same?"

No, we could not.

"Can't we just use the picture we just took and flip the image since everything about the gate is exactly the same?"

Apparently, we could not. We had to go through the whole damn ordeal again with the slamming and the crushing and the pain. In the end, of course, they did just take the best picture from the first side and reverse the image. LIKE I SAID! Idiots.

Then they get the shot of my son, five minutes, no problem. So the kid has been waiting around for me all day, and he's been pretty good, so I let him run around and blow off some steam while I talk to the producer and just finish up some final business arrangements. They're tearing down the equipment and one of the trucks with the lights is heading out and I hear this sudden horrible clanging and crunching noises and an ear-splitting scream.

It's my idiot kid, of course, and he's gotten caught up in the moving gate.

Everyone got a big laugh that Mr. Stick Figure Warning Man had let his son play on or around the moving gate right. Yeah really funny, jerkholes. Funny if you don't have to drive home with him blubbering in the backseat all the way and get crowned by the wife with a rolling pin when you try to explain.

Man, my life.