First time gaffing

When I started everyone had to gaff. Gaffing is when you climb a telephone pole using tiny spikes on your boots, and then strap on with your belt harness when you get to the top. I never liked it. When I was young we would get drunk and climb the water tower in town, and I would always get half way and have to go down...forcing everyone under me to go down. Then, being drunk I'd forget why I was the only one at the bottom and climb up again to repeat the process. My drunk self knows I don't like heights, my sober self knows it right away.

So here I am learning to gaff and saying in my mind I will never use this, and I will learn to use my ladder. I get to the top of the pole, and I am instructed to belt off and hang out.

I do so.

I am up there and I see a scissor-tail flycatcher  perched on the pole opposite me. It darts out over the wall and circles. It goes up, and then jackknifes straight down, pinching a moth in its beak and brings it back to sit and eat opposite of me. I never thought about the term flycatcher until then. They do actually hunt flies/moths.

I have gaffed twice since then after 8 years, and the last of those two I almost fell of the pole hence why I turned in my gaffs when I was allowed to.

BTW--I stream of consciousness these posts. Give me shit on grammatical issues and I will flip you the bird in my mind. You know who you are.