(Another) Story of My Life

For my entire life, I have had a, let's say, disregard for my body. I generally pay attention to where my head is, and the middle trunk section stays relatively in control, but when it comes to my appendages? Oh, Lord only knows what they're doing. They could be flailing around like tentacles, knocking over expensive tchotchkes or making me trip over the coffee table that's been in the same place in my parents' house for 22 years. 

When I was 18 or so someone pointed out to me that I tend to "hop" up stairs. He meant it as a cute observation, like, "Oh, Sarah, you are so quirky!" This was lost on me though, as I explained that the reason I jauntily bounce up stairs is because I'm terrified of the many ways my limbs could betray me while on a precarious stoop or, God forbid, actual full-size staircase. I'd run up stairs, but that is just asking for trouble. No, running is like writing my own death certificate that reads: Death By Rogue Limbs. In fact, once I was running up a set of stairs (and these were like, five steps - not a lot of steps by any estimation) and I somehow ran right into them, so that my body was sprawled from one level of the floor, up the steps, and onto the upper level. Plus, I broke my toe and had to wear flip flops to my high school graduation. DO YOU SEE WHY I FEEL THE NEED TO HOP?

So yes, I am frequently injuring myself merely by participating in everyday life. Last week I was washing the dishes after dinner, and I had a knife in my right hand and a scrubber brush in the left, and somehow I managed to slip or tangle my hands so that the knife went right into my thumb, slicing into my knuckle. At first I was kind of in shock, and I remember looking at the knife stuck in my thumb and thinking, "Oooh! It's like Magic Eye! It looks kind of like there's a BIG ASS knife in my thumb!"

Then I realized what had happened and was all, "Oh, shit." This is said with more exasperation than terror, because when you injure yourself as regularly as I do, it becomes more of an annoyance than anything. I ended up calling my mom, because I was pretty sure I needed stitches, but I didn't want to A) overreact, and B) go to the emergency room and end up with a $500 charge to my parents' insurance when I might not even need stitches. I realize this way of thinking may seem a bit odd, as I did HAVE A KNIFE STICKING OUT OF MY THUMB, but my medical-emergency-barometer was formed by my dad, who once grounded me for "overreacting/ being a drama queen" after I fell off my bike and hurt my arm, which then turned out to be broken. (No, I will never let either of my parents forget that. In fact I think when my mom read that last sentence she rolled her eyes so dramatically that it was actually audible.)

So I call my mom and I tell her about the KNIFE that has SLICED off my KNUCKLE, and she's all, "Well wait for 15 minutes and see if it stops bleeding." And I'm all, "BLOOD. EVERYWHERE," and she's like, "Well, drive yourself to the clinic and I'll meet you there." And I say, "BLOOD! KNIFE! Ugh. See you soon." I'd also like to add that it is very hard and most likely dangerous to drive while holding a paper towel around your thumb. It's kind of a two-hands job, AS IS DRIVING. I tell my darling mother this when we meet at the doc's and she says, "Yeah, I could have driven you, but it was a test to see how seriously hurt you were." I don't know if you can infer this from the broken arm story, but she was not joking.

So the doctor comes in and it turns out I do need stitches to reattach my knuckle to my thumb, plus a tetanus shot. The doctor is stitching me up and my mom walks over to take a picture with her phone (as a family we really are pretty nonchalant about injuries), and it turned out pretty well:

The lighting and general theme remind me of one of my favorite Annie Leibowitz pictures, taken after Mick Jagger punched his arm through a window.

That's basically what my thumb looks like. Not really. It looks like this:

Just another injury to add to the growing list. If I keep living my life this way, I'm eventually going to have more scars than un-marred skin. I'm too cute to end up looking like Edward James Olmos meets Two Face.