Another one of those days

I don’t know how to type officially, but I do pretty well. I use two fingers on each hand, plus a thumb. For those keeping count, that’s five digits.

I’m only typing this with four.

Today started out okay, but a little weird. There were no problems around the house, but the weather couldn’t decide what to do. For a few minutes there were some nice, big fat drops of rain coming down, but then the sun arrived. Later on, it rained again, then more sunshine. About 2 hours before going to work at the restaurant tonight I felt a migraine coming on. The Tylenol I took didn’t help much, so I laid down for about an hour. That didn’t help either, so I took some migraine medication just before I left for work. For a little while I considered not going to work, since the migraine was causing me dizziness and nausea, but I decided to override myself. I guess I should have listened to my instincts, because half an hour into my shift I sliced part of my finger off.

I was chopping lettuce with a chef’s knife and zigged when I should have zagged. I knew immediately it wasn’t just a knick, cause it hurt like….well, I don’t usually use language like this, but it hurt like a motherfucker. I got it under running water almost immediately, cursing the whole time. I knew it was bad when I looked over at my co-worker. He was staring down at the cutting board, and I distinctly heard him say “Oh, shit.” I remember saying “If there’s a piece over there, could someone please put it on ice?”, but they must not have heard me, or there wasn’t enough to ice down (or they were just too grossed out). The owner did an expert job of wrapping it (so the ER nurse told me later), and I kept it elevated and pressurized all the way to the hospital, just like my Boy Scout manual says. (All my first aid classes over the years prepare you to perform aid on someone else, but every time I’ve used it I’ve had to use it on myself.)

The hospital staff was great. They had it unwrapped and rewrapped before I was even admitted. A half hour wait in the waiting room, and I was shown into one of those curtained-off areas. I move for the chair, but the guy says, “Here please,” and motions to the bed. Then he says, “Lay back,” and so I spent the next 45 minutes feeling ridiculous, lying in bed with a bandaged finger. Unwrap, rewrap (not just the finger. Apparently, hospital protocol requires that they wrap approximately 18 times the area of the wound. So I look like the mummy about now.) And then home again, and here I am, awkwardly typing up the account. I am attending a black tie wedding this weekend (my first! (black tie, not wedding), and dancing should be interesting. Also, I have a (mostly) unwarranted reputation among my friends for being a klutz, and this isn’t going to help any. I’m prepared for the jokes.

What’s weird, as my friend Jon will point out, is that I can juggle three of these chef’s knives, but yet can’t chop lettuce with just one of them. On the other hand, in all the years of working in restaurants, this is the most serious thing that’s ever happened. A few steam or oil burns, a knick or two, but those go with the job. This is the first that I could accurately label “occupational hazard”.

Oh, and to the customers I left behind: enjoy your salad.