drinks down Jim Wright said:
Ever have just one of those days? You know the kind where the day starts with a punch in the face and ends with rabid badgers? Yeah, one of those. This morning, pulling on my socks, my hand slipped. This is not particularly unusual in and of itself. I have nerve damage in my left arm and as a result my grip on that side is mostly just the first two fingers. I was pulling on a heavy wool winter hiking sock, wool shrinks up a bit in the laundry and I really had to tug at it to get it over my foot. And my hand slipped off. My heel slammed into the floor with a bang that I just knew I'd be feeling for a week, because, yes, that's the damaged foot I already have trouble with. But the BEST part? The best part is that I punched myself in the eye, hard, with the back of my still clenched fist - so far I don't have a black eye, but that's not really an actual accomplishment. I was seeing stars there for a minute or two. Yes, that's correct, I nearly rendered myself unconscious putting on a goddamned sock. Hysterical, right? SITCOM humor. Bonk! Ow! And cue the laugh track. Except the two numb fingers caught in the wool. I ripped the nail completely off the ring finger and lost about half the pinky nail leaving behind a razor sharp jagged claw. The ring finger proceeded immediately to bleed profusely all over the place. Now picture it, 5AM, pitch dark out, I'm trying to be quiet so as not to wake the entire house, I've got one bare foot and one sock half-on half off, I'm hopping about in my underwear holding the bruised foot off the floor with the sock flopping about like I'm being attacked by a moray eel, I've punched myself in the face, I'm bleeding profusely, the dog downstairs hears me dancing around and starts whining to get out, which stirs up the cats who start crying that they're hungry, and I'm trying to staunch the bleeding by clenching the damaged hand while fumbling with a Band-Aid wrapper that was clearly designed by the Malignant Asshole Division of Johnson & Johnson ... and that's when the PAIN hit. Ever ripped a fingernail completely off? I'm talking right down to the quick. No nail left at all. HOLY HOWLING JESUS HAPLOID CHRIST. Like I said, I'm mostly numb in that hand, but not entirely numb ENOUGH. Obviously. I got the stupid Band-Aid on. Cleaned up the blood. Carefully pulled on the sock the rest of the way. Said to hell with shaving today. Finished dressing. Went down and let out the dog. And eventually left for work with my mauled digit screaming all the way, my eye swollen and painful, and the heel of my foot too sore to rest comfortably on the truck floor. You know at that point it's gonna be a great day. And I completely forget about the broken pinky nail. Later, in my office, I got off the phone after an hour long conversation and without thinking reached up to scratch my ear. The sudden flaring pain in my bandaged ring finger made me jump ... and the razor sharp broken pinky nail stabbed me right in the ear canal. God DAMN it. So, a couple minutes later I'm walking down the hall on the way to the restroom, my hand still throbbing, and people keep looking at me funny and asking if I'm okay. Am I okay? I'm no worse than usual and what's it to ya, right? What the hell is it with the sudden interest in my health? One glance in the restroom mirror and it all became clear. I'm limping worse than usual due to the bruised foot, I'm hunched over holding my mangled hand against my chest like a broken chicken wing, my face is swollen up on one side ... ... and blood is dripping freely from my ear. Back in the hall I explained: It's not a brain hemorrhage, see, ha ha, this morning I accidentally ripped out my fingernails and punched myself in the face... ur, okay, you know what? On second thought, it's a hemorrhage. A big one with, uh, um, an infestation of parasitic brain badgers. I should probably go home and lie down now. ___________________________ Note that people looked concerned, but not particularly surprised. I'm pretty sure they figure I'm overdue for some kind of cerebral vascular event anyway. There's probably an office pool. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "StrataList-OT" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/stratalist-ot. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
