All my woodworking mentors have urged me always to use a splitter on a table saw and never never never to stand directly behind the workpiece being fed into the blade, because sometimes the saw will grab a slice of wood and zip it back to, and occasionally through, the operator.

As one vividly put it, "A kickback can punch right through your bellybutton and, if you're squared up, right through your spine." I had regarded this as well-intentioned hyperbole.

A splitter is a vertical fin of thin metal directly behind the sawblade that prevents either the workpiece or the offcut being sawn from it from curving back into the sawblade (which rotates toward the sawyer) and kicking back toward the operator.

I seldom use my splitter because it's cumbersome and sometimes snags the workpiece. But however, mindful of my bellybutton and spine, I never stand directly behind the sawblade. Wherefore I am able to address y'all tonight.

This morning, whilst engaged on a secret project related to the upcoming relaunch of [a friend’s 63' motorsailer being renovated], ?I needed to cut a little piece of ash into a littler piece of ash. As woodworking skills go, I am classed as what one of my mentors called "sawdusters," guys who cut and cut and cut again, finally cut too small, and start over. I was starting over. I was using my left hand to press against the cutoff (left) side of the workpiece to keep it from chattering as I fed it through the saw with my right hand.

Suddenly there was a zing, and the cutoff disappeared. My left middle finger, formerly pressed against the cutoff, now pressed itself against the sawblade. The damage was much less than I deserved, being bandaid manageable. But since I take a baby aspirin daily to thin the blood trickling through my aged arteries, I bled like a stuck pig, and it took rather a while to get all a-tanto.

It was only when I returned to the shop that I noticed the shattered window. The offcut -- a piece of ash 6 1/8" x 3/4" x 5/8" -- and weighing no more than an ounce or two, had shot 30 feet across the shop and through a 4' x 6' window. The tempered glass had done its duty, crumbling into forty-leven million pieces, of which over the course of several hours I managed to sweep up forty-ten. What blew out onto the ground I may leave to the archaeologists.

An afternoon of phoning round established that tempered glass of such dimensions is no longer standard but that for somewhat less than a million bucks I could have a sheet custom-made, perhaps in time for Christmas.

Later in the day, back on the secret project, I managed to remove the fingerprints from two of my fingers with my belt sander. Still, life is good. All my fingers -- not to mention both thumbs -- still belong to me, and the majority of them are operable. Life is good enough.