Relative Something

Now this is something that is clearly relative. Yesterday at the day-job, for the first time in a very long, long time, I suffered two separate injuries that drew blood. To me, they were unfamiliar events. I was all thumbs.  I ended up with a band-aid on the same part of each of my thumbs from two isolated incidents.

I know that getting a cut on the hand is a very common occurrence for some people. There are folks who hardly know what it would be like to not have a wound somewhere on one of their hands. I tend to reside on the opposite end of that spectrum. To me, a cut is a distinct aberration. It is a luxury I do not want to take for granted.

I don’t like wearing band-aids. They always end up with the edges flapping or frayed. They are like having something stuck in your teeth that you can’t keep your tongue off. I feel a constant need to fiddle with the band-aid, repeatedly pressing it back into place. I’m not used to having them on my hands.

Last night, I decided to uncover the wounds to let them dry out. Peeling the bandage off the more significant wound pulled and stretched the skin just enough to cause fresh bleeding. Suddenly I become an invalid. With no usable thumb, I fumble everything. I can’t hold my toothbrush right. I can’t hardly wash my hands. Getting undressed becomes a fiasco. I’m trying to hold my hand up in the air, thumb out to avoid getting blood on things, and waiting for a scab to develop. What a ridiculous disruption for such a superficial injury.

We are truly lucky and blessed to have these tools on the end of each arm, covered with this amazing regenerative surface that flexes and protects.

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I wonder if things really happen in threes. It just occurred to me that these cuts were the second and third injuries I have endured in the last few days. I forgot, because it didn’t draw any blood, but on Monday, I smashed my finger with a hammer in a scene right out of a comedy routine. It hurt like crazy! At the time, one of my first thoughts was that I hadn’t suffered an injury in a long time. Little did I know what was to come…