I am a firm believer in the adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of liability lawsuits."

So, as the owner of my own business I recently instituted a safety program after an employee failed to warn me of an unsafe working condition; namely, that her end of the barb wire wasn't secure. After my gaping wounds healed, I followed the strongly worded advice of my insurance company and embarked upon a safety education program for my employees, which consist entirely of my part-time wife. Actually, she's my wife all the time, but once in a while she also works part of the time.

Taking a cue from the pamphlet given to me by my insurance provider, the first thing I did was put a sign on our refrigerator that indicated how many "accident-free days" we had enjoyed in the workplace. I also promised, in writing, that if we went a whole week without an accident, my employee would receive valuable incentive awards. The idea here is that if the award is something very special the employee will not report any small accidents, such as broken bones or whiplash, to my insurance company. Any reported accidents would also be documented in our brand new monthly safety newsletter, which would print the name and AGE of the injured party. (I believe this will do more than anything to cut down on alleged accidents on the job.)

At the urging of my insurance agent, I decided to hold monthly safety meetings for my entire work force. The original plan was I would wine and dine my employee and show her an "educational" film on some aspect of safety in the workplace. Such as: ladder safety, how to avoid a collision with a stationary tractor coming the other way (based on a real life experience) and accidents that can happen when using an electrical cattle prod. (My wife insists it wasn't an accident ... she did it on purpose.) But before I could decide which films to rent I attempted to discover in our first safety meeting how much wisdom my work force possessed.

"It is important when working around power tools," I lectured, "to tuck in your shirt. Does anyone know why? Yes, you there in the front row."

"So when the paramedics arrive you look good," answered my wife/employee in a reckless manner, diminishing her chances of being the teacher's pet and winning the prized safety award.

"Okay, smarty pants, do you know why we wear hard hats?" I asked.

"Because you're vain and don't want anyone to know you're follically challenged," said my wife, thus also eliminating her chance of being named employee of the month.

Disregarding my hired hand's sarcastic comments, in the interest of safety I pressed on. "It is very important that when you are tired or stressed out that you quit working. Wait a minute, where do you think you're going?" I asked my wife as she yawned and got up to leave. "This safety meeting isn't over," I proclaimed.

Just as I expected, I quickly discovered that there were gaps in my employee's knowledge about job safety. This was especially apparent during our discourse on electricity. "What would you do," I asked, "if your boss, namely me, was standing in water, plugged into 220 and lit up like a Christmas tree?"

"First, I would get a wooden board, preferably a four-by-four," my wife answered.

"That's right, because wood is a poor conductor of electricity. Then what?"

"Because the victim, namely you, would be in a state of shock, HA HA, I would need to break the electrical connection," answered my wife correctly. "The second thing I would do is hit you enthusiastically with the board. And finally, the third thing I would do is print your obituary in the company newsletter under the headline ... "Boss Survives Shock, Beaten To Death By Wife."

I could see that my wife was going to enjoy these safety meetings way too much.