Just A Matter of Time

I had predicted that by the end of our house renovation project, either Danny or I would end up with some kind of serious injury. I SHOULD have predicted that I would end up with the injury, because I am clumsy and seem to fall into freak accident situations a lot. Usually, these accidents are entirely my fault, and inexplicable to the general public. For example:

When I was 5 or 6 years old I ran into a parking meter while walking down the street because I wasn't looking where I was going. I was short, so the parking meter hit me dead on and I fell over. I'm sure the camp counselors were only in high school, but I remember them looking at me without much sympathy and with a lot of astonished amusement. But then, I probably would look at a kid who ran into a stationary object much in the same way.

When I was in 4th grade we were playing a spelling game that involved sitting on the top of our desks. I leaned back a little too far, and tipped right off my desk, head first, feet sticking up in the air. Again, viewed with now familiar looks of astonished amusement.

In high school PE, I bent down right as my friend was serving the birdie in bad mitton (no, I don't know how to spell that). The edge of the racket hit my eye, and I ended up with a swollen optic nerve and partially detached retina. The benefit was that I got to miss the majority of the rest of PE because I was on strict bed rest so I didn't go blind.

This history should have been a clue that, at some point while working on our house, I would manage to do something to injure myself in a stupid way. Which leads to my explanation of the splint on my pinky. In the desert the dirt is extremely hard, almost rock-like. Danny tells me to dig 5 big holes in which we are going to put wooden pillars to hold up the patio roof. I am not fond of manual labor, I have a short attention span, and I get frustrated easily. So by the fifth hole I'm getting ever so slightly annoyed. Then I hit a layer of rock, and my annoyance turns into a determined rage. I take the claw side of the hammer and start swinging it violently against the rock with all my might, not noticing that the reverberations of the hammer are snapping back my pinky finger with every blow. When the dust settles and the hole is dug, I notice a slight twinge in my finger. The twinge continues every day, and soon my pinky finger is getting stuck in the bent position every time I make a fist. Like, I straighten the rest of my fingers, but the pinky doesn't get the memo. I call my distinguished doctor father whose stellar advice is: "It's probably a tendon. Keep an eye on it". This is the same man who, after I complained about stomach pain while he was driving me to school said "It might be appendicitis. Have a good day!" and dropped me off in the parking lot. So I don't always have the most faith in his diagnostic abilities. I resort to the best doctor of all: Dr. Internet, and find a description of my pinky problem. Apparently it's an injured ligament, and if not corrected can result in a permanent condition called "boutonniere's deformity".

The last thing I need is a deformed finger, so now it is being safely held straight by an aluminum splint I bought at Walgreen's. I call it my bionic finger, and want to make it a James Bond-esque attachment. I was thinking about having a tiny knife that could pop out of the end so I could shank someone, or maybe a deadly laser. It could release smoke so I could make a quick get-away. It could turn into a phone, or I could store a capsule of deadly poison in it. The possibilities are endless. I may keep the bionic finger after the pinky heals, because a pinky finger is kind of useless, but a BIONIC pinky finger would be the awesomest thing ever.

But this incident wouldn't be complete without, yes, the look. I was in my favorite coffee shop today, and noticed that the cashier also had a finger splint. I remarked on it, and he asked how I injured my finger. I relayed the story, slowly realizing how crazy it sounded. When I was done there was a slight pause. Then he says "were you...drunk?" "No....just, well, frustrated". And there it was. The widening of the eyes. The slight smirk. He tried to cover it up, but I knew. And I'm used to it.