From a series of daily facts that I published about myself on social media in the days leading up to my birthday a few years ago. Fact #3 was worth sharing again as a cautionary tale.

Frank Fact #3: As a young man of 12 or 13 growing up in a small Ohio farm town, my friends and I would routinely ride our bikes to the downtown area to buy candy, browse the stores and engage in various hijinks.

One particular day, a piece of exercise equipment caught my eye in a sporting goods store. It was a thick coil spring with a T-handle at the top and a heavy rubber base at the bottom. The idea was to stand on the base and raise the T-handle repeatedly to work out various parts of the body.

Always being one to show off my strength and manliness, I encouraged my friend to witness my feat of strength. Stepping on the base, I slowly and powerfully raised the T-handle over my head and held it with a cocky smile. I did not realize the rubber base was slipping from beneath my feet before the spring-propelled, pound-and-a-half slab of rubber hit me in the chin at a high velocity.

I instinctually put my hand to my mouth and staggered a bit before removing my hand to ask my wide-eyed friend if it was bleeding. The freshly pooled blood in my hand was distributed in a perfect arc around the place I stood with my sweeping arm gesture.

No teeth lost and I was able to ride my bike home just fine. The only lasting effect of this event is that I still refuse to work out with spring loaded exercise equipment. I am also pretty confident that if I used a bow flex, I would propel myself into the ceiling like an arrow from a crossbow.