Snow Country for Old Men

Suburban living for the 21st century male has several key milestones.

There's the point where you decide to pay a guy to take care of your yard because who needs that aggravation?

There's the point where you switch from a propane grill to a wood chunk charcoal smoker (dude, don't even bring that charcoal brick stuff around my house. What do you think this is, Gladstone?).

And then there's the day when you get your power snow thrower.

Of these three, I think the final one represents the furthest stage of "maturity." I mean, it seems like a bit of an extravagance. You're spending a couple hundred bucks or so on an appliance that you'll use maybe once or twice a year? But when you have a snow event the likes of which we had this week, you damn well are grateful that you have a snow shovel that you can plug in or power up and just walk behind to clear your driveway. That goes double if, like a majority of the guys on my block, you have "advanced experience in the role of life."

Me? I kind of take it as a point of pride that I haven't yet crossed that threshold. I'm still young. I'm able bodied. I ain't 'fraid of a little cold white stuff, and shoveling it off my driveway is my manly duty, a rite of passage each winter that, like the out-taking of the trash and the smashing of the spiders, proves how important I am to this family.

So I wasn't at all daunted when I opened the garage door Thursday afternoon to attack the thick layer of white stuff in my driveway. Hell, I was kind of looking forward to it!

Before: A tabula rasa

10 inches exactly

Then, I moved the first shovel full. This was a heavy snow.

And when I say it was a heavy snow, I don't just mean there was a lot of it. Don't get me wrong, there WAS a lot of it, but it was also quite wet and heavy. This was going to be a tougher job than I was expecting.

Frost thing's first. I shovel a path from the garage door to the end of the driveway. Whew, this is tough. Next, shovel out the rest of one side of the driveway.

Halfway done with half the driveway

By the time I'm halfway done with half the driveway, I've worked up quite a sweat -- a manly sweat, mind you. I can see that I'd better do little advanced planning for the post-shoveling recuperation.

I'm going to need this later...

I shed my coat and get on with the job. Soon, I've got half the driveway cleared. That's enough to get one of our cars out of the two-car garage, just in case we have some kind of emergency (like running out of Scotch). I've also got a helluva backache, which makes that Scotch emergency all the more likely.

After

It all got me wondering just how much snow I moved. We had our driveway and sidewalk replaced last summer, so I know that the area I shoveled is about 907 square feet (130,608 square inches). Multiply that by the 10 inches of snow over the whole thing and you end up with 1,386,080 cubic inches of snow, or 802.13 cubic feet¹. That all converts into a pretty seriously stiff back the next day.

But numbers aside, I was prepared to reward myself for a job... well... done.

Time for a cold one

Also, I'm totally going to get a snow thrower before next winter.

1) All math calculations done by the Internet and may be subject to my complete ineptitude at mathematics.

  tagged: winter, snow, Kansas, shoveling, beer, snowstorm, blizzard, weather

Get Glue

It is said that over time, married couples begin to resemble one another.

Fortunately for my Supermodel Wife, this isn't the case in our situation. I mean, it would be a tragedy for her to begin to look like an old, fat, bald guy just because she had the bad judgment to marry a wildebeest like myself.

But that's not to say that over the course of years, shared experiences haven't given us a few physical similarities. Such an experience happened over the weekend.

It was the first Saturday in forever that we didn't have some kind of social or familial engagement. So I had the day open to focus attention on some much needed yard work. I spent the morning trimming trees and bagging up the debris in the back yard, spraying weeds, putting out cancer-causing crabgrass preemergent and cleaning some spilled plutonium off the back patio.

Pretty typical suburban stuff.

By about noon I'd worked my way to the front yard where I was shearing back some shrubbery that had become overgrown due to the sudden spring and our many busy and out-of-town weekends as of late. I was making pretty quick progress on the overgrowth thanks to the Black&Decker cordless electric hedge trimmer that I received as a Father's Day gift a few years ago.

(Ever notice how all Father’s Day gifts are either clothing or tools to "help” you work more?)

Anyway, I was happily buzzing along removing twig after twig of overgrown Japanese Snowball and ornamental apple tree in front of our house. I was trying to avoid disturbing a robin’s nest (with three bright blue eggs in it) when I reached up to remove a severed tree branch with my left hand. Stupidly, I simultaneously brought the electric hedge trimmers down with my right hand, getting the business end close to my left ring finger… a bit too close, as it turns out.

The pain of the cutting blade biting into the fatty tip of my finger was still radiating up my arm as I ran cursing into the kitchen, a trail of blood droplets left on the grass, sidewalk, driveway and garage floor (not to mention my t-shirt and shorts). Instinctively, I put my injured finger under a stream of cold water in the kitchen sink. It took about a second to see that quick medical attention was in order.

The pad of my ring finger, from about the middle of my finger nail to about 60 percent around my finger, was neatly sliced and dangling by the remaining 40 percent of the fingertip, which was still attached and in pretty good condition, all things considered.

I wrapped a piece of ice to my finger with a paper towel while my wife and hero, who was making lunch, recruited our next door neighbor to watch the kids. We headed to the emergency room at St. Luke’s South. After a quick three and a half hour wait, a tetanus shot and me explaining the accident three or four times to various nurses and doctors, I returned home with my finger tip superglued back in place underneath a Band-Aid with instructions not to get it dirty or wet.

Now, for those of you who have been reading this blog for a few years, some of this might sound vaguely familiar. But I can assure you that I’m not making up new stories due to a lack of anything else to write about. I mean, I do have a lack of anything interesting to write about, but I’m not repeating stories because of it.

It so happens that a similar accident befell my Supermodel Wife a couple of years, only in her case the cutting instrument was a cheese slicer, and she lost part of her thumb. You can read more about that at the link, but here’s a reminder of what it looked like after a week or so of healing.
For comparison, looking at this picture of my ring finger after a day or two of healing, you can see that it’s not near as bad.
But still it’s one of those shared experiences that helps make us old married folks begin to look like each other.

UPDATE:
There's still a lot of healing to do. The glue used on my finger turned out not to be so super so I went to the walk-in clinic this morning to get it redressed and re-glued. According to the Nurse Practitioner I saw, the glue used costs about $200 per .5ml vial. Thank you Obamacare!

tagged: injury, finger, medicine, home improvement, accident, hedge trimmer

Demon nights

So I'm laying in bed, fast asleep at the quiet dark hour of 3:30 this morning when suddenly and without provocation a demon from the very pits of hell sneaks up on me and jabs his white hot pitchfork deeply into the muscles of my right calf.

Laughing like pure malevolent evil, the archfiend began to rotate his blistering fiery pitchfork of maleficence as if to draw my eternal soul out of each fiber of my triceps surae like so much hell bound spaghetti.

Some how, some way I was able stifle a bone chilling scream that would have roused all of the people in our house, our neighborhood — even the entire city — by grunting loudly through clenched teeth.

Bolting upright in bed and gasping, I clutched at the monkey fist that my muscles had become, trying in vain to rub the knot out and relieved the pain.

I jumped out of bed, my foot twisted by the cramp into a spastic, crippled claw. I stood on the floor and leaned against the bedpost using my body weight to force the muscle to stretch. After a minute or two that seemed like centuries, the calf muscles released their contraction and I began to breathe easier.

Sweat dripping from my forehead, I sat down and massaged my leg, which had ceased to be excruciating and was now merely aching. Eventually I returned to a fitful sleep, restless in the knowledge that just one wrong move would summon the charlie horse demons again.

tagged: night, sleep, cramp, muscle, calf, demon, pain

Two cups, one gack

I recently discovered a flaw in my morning routine.

A typical work-a-day morning for me goes something like this: Get up, get ready for work, drop off the kids, stop by QT for a coffee and fruit (can't forget breakfast), drive to work, park car, arrive at my cube, turn on computer, drink coffee, start work.

It's a pretty good, streamlined routine. There are various sub-steps along the way, but you get the idea. It has worked pretty flawlessly for ages now.

Until yesterday. I discovered a rather nasty flaw stemming from my coffee subroutine.

The coffee subroutine involves me grabbing one of my half-dozen or so insulated travel coffee mugs on the way out the door. After dropping of the kids, I take my mug to the QuikTrip for a refill of Colombian Supremo with a squirt of non-fat creamer.

So far so good, right? I drink the coffee on the way to work and throughout the firs few meetings of the morning. The problem is, I don't always bring the mugs home everyday after work. And a couple of them are identical.

Yeah. You see where this is going.

Yesterday I bring my morning cup of joe into my cube. For illustration purposes, it looks pretty much like this (because this is what it is).

As per usual, I set it on my desk to take out my laptop computer and get it started. I take off my jacket and hang it up. Then as I'm sitting down in my office chair, I grab my cup of coffee and take a big swig. But I've inadvertently set it down next to yesterday's coffee mug...

Let me just say that it's no pleasant realization when you're expecting the warm rich taste of roasted Colombian java beans to get the cold bitter nastiness from the previous day. Luckily I came to the horrible realization before I swallowed, and immediately spit the offending liquid back into the cup.

But obviously, I've got to scar, mar or otherwise deface one of the cups. This can't happen again. This aggression will not stand, man.

tagged: coffee, QuikTrip, mug, gag, Colombian Supremo

Gravity check

So I'm cruising easily down the K12, the quadruple black diamond run at the exclusive ski resort where our family traditionally spends our Thanksgivings.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the snow was... well, sitting lightly on the mountain side. It was truly bucolic and I basked in the bucolicness as I passed through 20, 30, 40 miles per hour down the mountain.

I was basking all bucolic-like when suddenly I saw out of the corner of my eye a little white snow bunny dart out from behind a tree, right into the path of my slicing skis. It was only my expert skiing ability that saved the delicate rodent creature from certain decapitation, as I executed a triple-axel-reverse-front-gainer to avoid dealing the death blow.

But as bad luck would have it the tip of my ski lightly clipped an overhanging spruce limb, throwing my equilibrium off just enough that I landed slightly askew on my left foot.

The pain was instantaneous as all my weight combined with my downward and frontward momentum transferred and compressed on my left ankle. I heard a sound like the cracking of knuckles, and while I remained upright on my skis, I made the rest of the run down the mountain in severe pain.

Yeah. That sounds pretty good. Pretty heroic and not at all stupid like the actual true story.

You know, the actual true story where I decided not to wake up our six-month-old daughter, instead carrying her to the nursery to sleep. Then, since I was carrying her and unable to see where I was going, I don't realize when I get to the bottom step of the staircase that there is actually one more step to go.

Then I step out to walk down the hall, but there's no floor there and I end up tipping forward, landing on the side of my foot, having it fold under my ankle and hearing that tell-tale knuckle-cracking sound that (I find out three days later) is also the sound of foot bones fracturing.

Yeah, falling down the stairs is totally lame.

tagged: ski, story, K12, stairs, broken foot, fracture

A pink carnation and a pickup truck

I'm going to my high school class reunion this weekend, (yes, there was a time when I had class). To mark the occasion I thought I'd take a little stroll down Amnesia Lane and pull this story out of the dusty archives of my past life for your entertainment.

It was the spring of 1989, a completely different time in America. We were euphoric as the Berlin Wall was torn down and democracy erupted and was then crushed in Tienanmen Square.

Gasoline still cost less than a dollar a gallon despite Capt. Hazelwood dumping a bajillion gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. TV audiences were introduced to a comical animated family known as The Simpsons, and Milli Vanilli had lip-synced their way into our hearts with with Girl You Know It's True.

In Smallville, Kansas, that clear spring evening, we had just finished the formal dinner portion of our prom. Dressed to the nines in tuxes and gowns, we were making our way across town to the sock up in the school gymnasium. But first, nearly every kid in school hopped into a car for the traditional main street cruise.

I'd borrowed dad's car for the evening. My date, Samantha, was riding shotgun and our friend Andie was in the back seat. We were full of smiles and laughter and youth as we cruised the streets jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive. Windows down, radio blasting, waiving and yelling at friends in passing cars as the cool spring air blew through our hair. There was only the now.

We'd completed a circuit of the Main Street cruise and pulled into the convenience store parking lot to do a U-turn and another lap.

The next few seconds were strange, because they seemed to happen in slow-motion and at hyper speed at the same time. I had been waiting for an opening in the heavy traffic to make the right-hand turn back onto Main. When I saw the opening I quickly accelerated into the street. At the same time some unknown traffic obstruction down the street caused a sudden domino affect of seven or eight cars breaking in quick succession.

The result was that the car in front of me hit the breaks just as I hit the accelerator. The result of that was severe front end damage to my dad's car -- so severe that it was undrivable.

So prom night, dressed up, cruising main, smashed up car -- my life had become a John Hughes movie.

It took an hour or so to get everything taken care of, make sure nobody's hurt, clear the street, call my parents, try to explain -- eventually I made my way with my best friend (shout out WT!) to the prom dance. I don't really remember much from the dance, except for the drama between Andie and Blane (it was good to see Blane stand up to his snobby friends, but sheesh, Andie has to make everything about her).

The PTA sponsored an after-prom party (strictly non-alcoholic, thank you very much) which I went to since I was now hitching a ride with my friend Cameron Frye and his date. It was a good enough time, snacks, dancing, movies and stuff.

But what sticks out are the door prizes. Every 20 minutes or so they would have a drawing for a door prize, a gift card for local restaurants for example -- one of my friend even won one of those cool newfangled Compact Disc players.

Well in a final ironic kick in the metaphorical crotch, my number was called for one of the door prizes. What did I win? I'm glad you asked.

It was a gift card for $50 worth of gas a the local convenience store.

tagged: prom night, car crash, ironic, High School, John Hughes, reunion, Hazelwood

No man is an island

I first met George about two years ago.

It was a week or two after we moved into our house. I was in the back yard trying to do something about years of overgrowth and neglect by the home's previous owners. George was in his backyard, raking his tidy, well-kept grass.

We met at the chain-link fence and introduced ourselves. George and his wife are the original owners of the house next door to ours. They're retired and split time between Overland Park and their house "down at the Lake" of the Ozarks.

I saw him frequently outside, tending to his yard and house. When we had our siding replaced, he asked for a couple dozen of the cedar shingles we removed. He used them to patch holes wood peckers had made in the cedar siding of his house.

We always took time to greet each other and spend a few minutes talking. He'd ask after our family. He made friends my parents and in-laws.

A guy couldn't ask for a better neighbor.

I became a little concerned when I stopped seeing him so much. The lat time I saw him was in September or so. We were talking about various home repairs when he mentioned, with a smile and a chuckle, that "I just don't seem to be getting around as easily as I used to."

I told him in parting to take it easy and have some red wine, then went on with my mowing or raking or whatever I was doing at the time.

Then October and November passed. December, January and February. I knew he and his wife liked to spend time at their lake house. They were also prone to flying south in the colder months, wintering in a condo in Florida or taking a Caribbean cruise.

Finally, this weekend George was out in the back yard again. I was glad to seem my friend again, but I almost wished I hadn't.

George had lost about 50 pounds since I'd last seem him. He moved slowly and his voice, low and smooth six months ago, had become raspy, like there wasn't enough breath behind it.

George was polite as ever, but he did say it hasn't been a good winter. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October and has been on chemotherapy for six months.

The clothes he wore as a healthy, paunchy 195-pound retiree look like they're going to fall off of the 50-pound lighter version of him.

I awkwardly gave encouragement and inquired as to his prognosis. He said the doctors have told him you never really get rid of pancreatic cancer -- that you can hope for another year or maybe two.

True to his from, he was positive and upbeat. He said he would enjoy each day as much as he could. He is determined not to give anything up.

But even though it is apparent that he is still the same strong and healthy person in many of the ways that really count, I can't help but feel worried and sad for my friend.

tagged: pancreatic cancer, health, neighbor

Evil incarnate

Yesterday, KCMeesha wished us all a Happy International Day of the Cat, to which I say "Hsssssss"

It's long been my considered opinion that cats are the Minions of Evil on this planet. Opinion? Let me correct myself. I'm certain that it is a quantifiable fact.

You see, I have a built in biological evil detector. Whenever I'm around evil I have a physical reaction that includes watery eyes, sneezing, tightness in my chest and difficulty breathing. You might call it an allergic reaction to Evil.

I go through a mild form of this whenever I see Oprah on TV. Also, I had this reaction when I toured the Dachau concentration camp during my first European trip (there were cats there at the time... no surprise). It also happens whenever I read this guy's blog.

So it's pretty clear that my Evil detector has a pretty good track record. And what happens whenever I'm around cats? You guessed it, Evil detector goes off the charts.

But really, you don't need an organic Evil detector to know that cats are evil. Just look at them. I mean, they creep around all creepy like with their weird slitted eyes and sneaky paws and nasty flicking tales. Gives me a case of the screaming heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

And speaking of the heebie jeebies, check out this sterling example of the species:

He might be the ugliest cat in the world. And in Exeter, N.H., he’s become quite the spectacle. “People come in and take pictures of him on their cell phones,” veterinary employee Christie Hartnett told WMUR-TV in Manchester, N.H., which reported on Ugly and his newfound fan base.

Bloody Evil worshipers if you ask me.

I rest my case people.

tagged: Evil, cat, Oprah, pets, ugly

Bad news

I'm sorry to report that my plan to win the lottery and retire has hit a slight snag.

tagged: economy

Bug Out

It was a dirty, sweaty job, but it needed doing and the weather last Saturday was perfect for doing it.

Like many across the metro this year, three of the trees in my backyard have been afflicted with webworms.

In case you aren't familiar with these insidious little beasties, they build a webby nest in your tree and eat all the leaves. The more leaves they eat, the bigger the web gets. As the web gets bigger, it engulfs more leaves for the little bastards to eat.

It seriously uglifies your trees and can kill saplings. And the only way to really get the out of your tree is to amputate the infected limb and destroy it.

So anyway, I had already pruned the affected branches from two of the three infested trees.

The worms on the third tree were about 20 feet up. I put up a ladder and grabbed my telescoping loppers and climbed as high as I could through the lower branches.

By this point I was used to tree bark, leaves and sawdust falling off the trees onto my head and into my eyes and ears (eye protection is for the weak). So after I lopped of the offending branch near the trunk, I stepped down off the ladder and brushed myself off.

I could feel that a piece of leaf had fallen into my ear. I casually tried to brush it out with my pinkie finger as I picked up the recently severed branch to add it to the debris pile.

Except the leaf wouldn't come out of my ear. In fact, my brushing attempt seemed to have pushed it further into my ear.

It was at this point that I noticed dozens of tiny winged insect crawling all over my shirt. This was accompanied by the realization that there wasn't a leaf in my ear, it was a bug. And it was crawling deeper into my ear canal.

Cursing, I made my way inside, headed to our downstairs bathroom and grabbed the nearest cotton swab. I rubbed it around my ear until I was sure that no creepy crawlie could be left.

Feeling better (but still a little creeped out), I headed back to the backyard to finish my work. I'd just taken a step off the back patio when I felt the sickening tickling in my external auditory meatus - and no, that's not a good thing.

Panic set in as I raced up to our master bath. We have multiple mirrors that can be articulated to allow me to look into my ear.

It was clear that this nefarious creature was intent upon burrowing into my noggin and laying eggs in by brain. Believe me folks, I can not afford to lose any brain cells.

Visions of Chekov's madness in Wrath of Khan raced through my mind.

I aligned the mirrors to peer into my ear and there it was. Laughing maniacally at me and brandishing its pincher-like beak about to delve into my dome.

A few quick flicks of my finger and I had him out.

I made my way back outside, relieved to be rid of this certain terror. When I got into the sun, I peered at the horrible little invader for a moment or two before crushing him like the bug he was.

tagged: insect, webworm, bug, tree, ear, Wrath of Khan, Chekov

Ignorance is bliss

It's nice to not be informed. It lets you go about your day happily unaware of what the hell is going on in the world.

It allows you to crack uninformed quips about how dumb Sarah Palin is. It makes it easy for you to say "Vote for Obama, he's totally different from every other politician."

Of course, while this obliviousness pretty much means you'll be completely wrong on all of your blustering ramblings, at least it means you'll be happy.

And I'm all for happiness, which is why I encourage you NOT to listen to the most recent episode of This American Life.

It's a follow up to an episode I mentioned a couple of months ago, in which Ira Glass, Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson explained how this global meltdown got started.

In this episode, they continue to discuss just what the hell is happening and how absolutely screwed we all are (hint: a $850 billion bailout is a squirt of piss compared to the estimated $60 TRILLION in outstanding credit default swaps).

So whatever you do, DON'T listen to this top notch reporting. Go back to your blog and write something snarky about how the Republicans screwed the country and if we only vote Democrats (more of the same) everything will be sugarplum fields and candy cane forests.

tagged: economy, This American Life, Ira Glass, Wall Street, Alex Blumberg, Adam Davidson, bailout

Bumper? Hell I just met her.

The panicked squeal of the dog was followed instantly by the sound of something dragging behind my car along the gravel driveway.

I immediately stopped, fearing the death (or at least serious dismemberment) of one of my parents two Labradors. The two dogs, one a highly intelligent jet black lab named Rain and the other a chocolate lab named B.U.D. (acronym for Brown Ugly Dog) had run across the driveway as we pulled in for a Labor Day visit.

I had slowed down to let them pass before continuing to a parking place. I knew that as long as Rain was the leader, everything should be fine. B.U.D. was a different story. He couldn't be trusted to make good decisions.

I'm not sure how much in-breeding there is in his questionable lineage. I just know that in the parlance of rural Kansas, he's dumber than a bag of hair.

So when I heard the loud canine yelp and the dragging sound from the rear of the car, my first thought was that I was going to have to perform an act of euthanasia on a half-wit dog that had decided to lay down under my car.

I actually felt sorry for the poor beast as I shifted the car into Park, and I wondered how I would explain this to the five-year-old dog lover in the backseat.

My entire perspective changed when I saw what was lying on the ground behind my car. The plastic bumper (which is actually the bumper cover) was torn from the driver's side, just behind the rear tire, across the back of the car and was dangling by a few plastic clips on the passenger's side rear.

A chocolate Brown Ugly Dog, was sitting nearby, dumbly drooling and wagging his tail, seeming almost proud of the destruction he had caused. It didn't take the intelligence of a black lab to quickly size up the situation:

The two dogs had run across the driveway in front of my car. But B.U.D. was latched to a dog cable, probably due to his severe stupidity to keep him from roaming the countryside and running out to greet oncoming semi trucks on the highway a quarter-mile away.

So when he crossed the driveway, he took the cable attached to his neck with him. My car tires rolled over the cable -- front tires first, then rear tires. As soon as the cable cleared the rear tires, the dog pulled tight on the line. It became stuck on the rear fender and easily pulled the entire bumper cover off the car.

What I initially took for a yelp of panic, probably was a yelp of triumph. A canine half-wit's way of saying "Hurray, look what I did!"

So after a few minutes of suppressing my cursing reflex, I made the call to AAA. I gave them the info, they said get and estimate on Tuesday and they'll cover the cost of the repair (after I pay my $500 deductible, of course).

So it takes a couple of weeks for the body shop to get the parts in and get the work done. I'm supposed to pick up my car with a shiny new bumper cover today, and I'm only out $500 bucks.

Oh, and just to prove that God's Irony Ray was aimed squarely at me, this all happened the week after we made the final payment on the car.

Hilarious.

tagged: car, accident, bumper, dog, body shop

Merry Bloody Christmas

To her credit, not that she needs more credit in my book, my supermodel wife didn't swear. Didn't cuss, didn't really scream like I would have if it were me standing there with my hand under the faucet watching blood spew from my fingers.

If it were me, you can bet that the sonsobitches, F-bombs, and even the nuclear MF-bombs would be going off all over the kitchen in my mom's house where we were visiting.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me reset the scene with some background.

We're all settling down for a traditional Christmas Eve lunch of Tuscan Potato Soup. I'm at the kitchen island preparing a plate for our 5-year-old daughter, and my SMW is across from me slicing some fancy cheese to go on some fancy crackers.

And because it was fancy cheese for fancy crackers, my dad gave her a fancy surgical steel cheese knife to cut it with. It was the kind with the blade through the middle that you're supposed to run over the edge of the cheese to cut a slice.

Like this one...

Anyhoo, SMW makes a witty remark about how the device looks like a deadly weapon, then proceeds to assume the cheese-slicing position.

Unfortunately, the cheese is a little hard. I think it had been in the fridge and wasn't quite thawed. So she adjusted her grip on the cheese slicer and put added effort into pulling it toward her. Suddenly, with a quick slip like an assassin's blade, the razor edge of the cheese slicer slid through the cheese... but it didn't stop with the cheese.

In a split second, the vorpal blade went snicker-snack, right down the length of fancy Cheddar and into and through the soft pad of the tip of my supermodel wife's thumb.

As the exclamations rang out, "OH MY GOD! Omigod, Ohmigod! OH MY GOD!" a slice of thumb, just the right size to top a Wheat Thin, landed on the counter top.

Out of some deep evolutionary impulse, she rushed to the sink to put the wound under running water. It was there that I caught my first clear view of the cleanly cut thumb, or rather the cleanly cut crater where the thumb used to be.

We all snapped into action. A paper towel was used at first to try to stop the bleeding while my sister-in-law brought the gauze and bandages from the first aid kit. My mother found the severed chunk of thumb and put it in a small container with some ice.

They call the emergency room as my wife and I head to the car. We turn the 20-minute drive to the ER into a 15-minute one, and soon we're rehashing the incident with physician's assistant, showing her the bite-sized bit of thumb we brought with us.

"I have some bad news," the PA said. "We're going to take off the dressing and bathe your thumb in betadine. It will hurt worse than anything you've felt so far. Then we'll have to redress it. We can't sew on the rest of your thumb, since it's already dead."

With that, the PA made good on her promise. Blood began to gush as the dressing was removed. When the thumb was dipped into the betadine bath (to the stifled cries of SMW) , a river of dark red blood began to mix with the pool of light brown liquid. The amount of blood prompted the PA to revise her prognosis.

"Okay, this is worse than I thought. I'm going to get my doctor in here to look at it, but I think we're going to have to cauterize the wound."

The doctor arrived shortly and concurred.

"It looks like you've cut deep enough to slice the small artery and also part of the nerve that runs through your thumb. That's why there's so much blood and so much pain," he said.

A blood-pressure cuff was used to help stop the bleeding while anesthetic was injected around the base of the thumb. Then the doctor performed the silver-nitrate chemical cauterization, turning the wound black and making it look even worse.

And, just because I know your aching to see it, here's what the thumb looked like after about four days.

Doctors have told her that the thumb will grow back over the next six to eight weeks, but it will remain tender long after that.

So how was your Christmas?

tagged: Christmas Eve, thumb, cheese slicer, blood, bloody, cauterize, silver nitrate

Cracked rear view

You can learn a lot of good life lessons on a daily basis if, like me, you make a lot of stoopid mistakes.

Today is a great example.

Everything was going along well. Everyone got up, showered, dressed and fed in time for me to leave by 7:30 to get the kid to school and me to work.

So I hop in the car, buckle up, and put the care into reverse to pull out of the garage. So far, everything is going according to the usual daily routine.

Then, for a split second, I look down to adjust the air conditioner/defogger that I had turned on during yesterday's afternoon rush-hour downpour.

Bad idea.

As I turned the temperature dial from medium to cool, I heard the sickening crunch of plastic on metal. In my inattentive backing up, I had run my driver's side rearview mirror into the metal garage door track.

I wasn't moving very fast, and I hit the break immediately. But the damage had been done. The mirror is pulled away from the door about a quarter of an inch, and it cracked at the base where it connects to the car door.

My first auto accident of any kind since 1993. Son. Of. A. BITCH!

For the sake of the kid in the backseat, I managed to internalize a stream of obscenities. The rest of the morning drive went off as usual, and my temper was soothed a little by the conversation with the kid's teacher wherein I learned that she had a great day at school yesterday and yada, yada, yada.

During the short commute I tried to grasp for one of those aforementioned life lessons. Always stay focused on the task at hand? It's better to move forward to backward?

The best I could come up with is "Watch where you're fuckin' going!"

tagged: driving, accident, car, rear view, life, lesson