Sober sayings can come to mind unexpectedly. Here’s one that popped into my head, with a twinge of remorse, two nights ago at a hospital emergency room: Easy does it. I was sitting in an examining cubicle, watching my...
Sober sayings can come to mind unexpectedly. Here’s one that popped into my head, with a twinge of remorse, two nights ago at a hospital emergency room:
Easy does it.
I was sitting in an examining cubicle, watching my thumb bleed into a container of saline solution. A cheery young doctor had told me to soak my injured finger, which I had sliced with a kitchen knife earlier in the evening, and promised to return promptly to close the wound with surgical glue. I was gazing obsessively at the crimson water, thinking of shark attacks and people bleeding out on TV hospital dramas and wondering how long it would take before I fainted from the loss of blood.
Being a drama queen is not sober. But so hard to give up.
At any rate, the reason “easy does it” came to mind at that moment was that as I watched my bleeding thumb and mind-tripped morbidly, it occurred to me that the reason for my wound was a refusal to kick back and chill. Specifically, the weapon with which I had turned my thumb into chum was purchased in a rash and impulsive mood in which I had failed to notice the knife’s uncanny resemblance to the one brandished by Michael the slasher in the Halloween movies.
I ordered the knife a few weeks ago through an online delivery service. As an over-excited home-delivery newbie, I was thrilled to discover that the service would not only bring groceries or drug store items to my doorstep but also shop for me at my favorite home goods emporium. And I must confess that pan-addictive shopaholic that I am, I went a little nutty with my ordering, clicking on all kinds of kitchen utensils that were above my skill grade as a chef, including the deadly carving implement. Had I looked a little more closely at the size (large) and the sharpness (razor) of the utensil or perhaps calmed down long enough to realize that I had already ordered a set of smaller safer knives, and didn’t need more deadly weapons for my kitchen drawer, I might have spared myself the pain of injury and the anxious vigil watching my blood spill ominously into a plastic vial.
If only I had reminded myself that the sober approach to shopping, and to everything, was to take it easy.
I am happy to report that all went well at the hospital. The doctor returned in a timely fashion and glued my thumb back together and today I am bandaged and my hand is pain free.
I am still, however, wincing with emotional distress from the lesson.
But grateful, as always, for the wisdom to be found at the end of any misadventure. And exceedingly glad to still possess ten fingers and ten toes.